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Book review: The Eerie Silence – Are we Alone in the Universe

eerie silence jacket image

Book review: The Eerie Silence: Are We Alone in the Universe?

Author: Paul Davies

Hardcover: 260 pages
Publisher: Allen Lane (4 Mar 2010)
ISBN-10: 1846141427
ISBN-13: 978-1846141423

The search for extra-terrestrial intelligence, or SETI, is in a rut.  That is Paul Davies’s message in ‘The Eerie Silence – Are we alone in the Universe’ – a thorough taking stock of the programme started by Frank Drake in 1959 to search for alien radio messages from outer space.

Davies wants a rethink from scratch, where we shake off the blinkers of anthropocentric thinking and question exactly what we should be looking for.  Listening out for a direct radio message is fine, but lets extend the search to include more subtle evidence of alien legacy and the very origin of life.

ET has indeed been strangely quiet, and for Davies two rather extreme explanations for that are providing signposts to a ‘New SETI’.

Under the first option, we have to accept that life on Earth was born of a series of events so incredibly flukey they will never be repeated.  Under the second, we face the chilling prospect that intelligent life pops up quite frequently, only to develop a propensity for technology fueled self-destruction.

Holding out hope for a middle way, and putting speculation over self-destructing aliens aside, Davies argues there is a raft of solid science we could be getting on with to better understand the scarcity of life.  Those up for the task (and skilled enough to secure funding) will enter a field of polarised opinions and a paucity of hard evidence.  The prize? – possibly the final word on the question of whether life is ubiquitous in the universe – a ‘cosmic imperative’ –  or that you and I here on Earth are a one-off, somewhat lonesome, rarity.

We should still listen for radio messages, says Davies, enthusing over SETI’s groundbreaking Allen Telescope Array (ATA) of radio telescopes; but the emphasis  should be on searching for new types of evidence of intelligence, both in space and closer to home – on Earth in fact.

If we can show life on Earth started independently more than once – a second genesis if you like –  the fluke theory is destroyed and the prospect of life existing on the billion or so Earth-like planets in our galaxy increases immensely.  Once life has started, there is pretty much universal agreement among scientists that Darwinian style evolution will, environmental factors willing, take over to produce complex life forms and probably intelligence and consciousness.  Second (and third and fourth..) genesis life forms could be living alongside us today, unrecognised as a microbial  ‘shadow biosphere’ – the holy grail for researchers now culturing candidate samples from Mono Lake in California.  Or we might find tell-tale markers of an extinct second genesis in geological records that we have seen but incorrectly interpreted.  With so many work areas highlighted as candidates for inclusion in New SETI, a problem for potential researchers could be deciding where to focus their application.  Presumably Davies is taking calls.

Moving from Petri dish to telescope dish, Davies believes our pre-conceptions of ET in space are causing us to define too narrow a target there also.  Any intelligent biological life, he says, will quickly transition to an intellectually superior machine form having nothing in common with Homo sapiens and little to gain from interstellar chit-chat.

Or the aliens may have launched beacons that ping data packets only once a year.  Or they may have sent probes – monolith fashion – to lurk around our solar system, programmed to spring to life when we learn to think up to their level.  The point is we will only detect this kind of activity if we specifically look for it.

In his most futuristic speculation, Davies envisions life evolving into a quantum computer – an extended network of energy floating through space, amusing itself solving complex mathematical doodles.  The implication of course, if such ‘beings’ exist, is that we are headed in the exact same direction.  How do you fancy being a node in a pan-galactic thought matrix?

Among other thought-provoking revelations, we learn the Earth has for billions of years been happily swapping rocks, possibly with primitive life aboard, with other planets in the solar system – including Mars. That makes the potential discovery of life on that planet important, but not necessarily a game-changer for SETI, as Martian and Earth life could share the same unique origin.

Davies puts SETI into historical context on a quirkier note, recounting how the mathematician Karl Gauss, as early as the turn of the 19th century, planned to signal the Martians using huge shapes cut out of trees in the Siberian forest.

There is an implicit appeal in The Eerie Silence for scientists from different disciplines to work together on SETI and astrobiology – maybe a guiding principle for New SETI?  Astronomers, biologists, geologists, engineers, astro-physicists and cosmologists all have a role in the search – as do non-scientists.

That also holds true for the post-detection task-group Davies leads, set up to advise an appropriate response in the event ET finally calls.  In a chapter devoted to the implications of ‘first contact’, he asks how various groups: from the media, through politicians, the military, and religious believers might react.   If we receive a targeted message, we should certainly think carefully about the reply.   But that we already send the occasional burst of blindly targeted radio messages into space is a positive in Davies’s book; at least it makes people think about science, humanity, and what in our culture we value.   Religion, and particularly Christianity, Davies believes, will struggle to reconcile dogma with the existence of intelligent aliens.

In his wind-up, Davies keeps all options open as to the chances of a positive outcome for SETI. But on balance, hardcore enthusiasts of radio SETI in particular may well find the The Eerie Silence a bit of a downer.  Likewise, those looking for evidence to support more philosophical ideas around nature favouring life, or the existence of a life principle buried in the physics and chemistry of the universe – themes Davies has arguably been more sympathetic to in previous works – will be disappointed as he rejects each in turn.

To its credit, The Eerie Silence is as much about human motivations and psychology as it is about research and radio antennae.  A chatty narrative with frequent episodes of self-examination strikes chords with thoughts and feelings most of us will have had: like the need for a sense of self, and a yearning for meaning.   The search for ET is very much the search for what we are, what we may become, and what ‘it’ all means.  A cliched theme maybe, but well supported here with relevant facts and reasoned speculation.  Davies’s talent for projecting  rock-solid scientific rationalism while not (entirely) closing the door on other perspectives has produced an absorbing read.

Other posts related to astrobiology and SETI on Zoonmian

How would you break the eerie silence – competition winners

Royal Society’s meeting on astrobiology and the search for extra-terrestrial life (SETI)

Rapping ET-style

Interview with an astrobiologist (Lewis Dartnell) and Life, Talk to me about Life

How would you break the ‘eerie silence’ – WINNERS!

In February, I told you in this post about a competition sponsored by publishers Penguin UK together with National Science and Engineering Week, that asked YOU to suggest a message we might beam into space at the aliens.  The idea stemmed from Paul Davies’s new book ‘The Eerie Silence’ .

eerie silence jacket image

Paul Davies
Paul Davies

It turns out that nearly 1000 messages received from all over the world are, as of 2pm 12th March, winging their way across the cosmos in the direction of the Orion nebula, courtesy of BT’s Goonhilly Earth Station in Cornwall.   This was the first day of National Science and Engineering Week UK, and included The Big Bang event at Manchester Central Conference Centre.  Joining the event, astrophysicist author Davies said:

From time to time, humans have deliberately beamed powerful messages into space to attract the attention of any cosmic company. On Friday, a big radio dish in Cornwall will do just that, conveying a selection of messages from earthlings to anyone who cares to listen. The messages will be directed towards the Orion nebula, a stellar nursery that would be an attractive location for an advanced alien community with astro-engineering prowess. It will take over 1,200 years for the messages to arrive, travelling at the speed of light, and I for one won’t be around to receive any reply. But the purpose of the exercise is not so much to establish a dialogue with ET. Rather, it is to get young people to reflect on some deep issues, such as whether or not we are alone in the vastness of space, what is mankind’s place in the universe, and why after 50 years of patient listening SETI astronomers are greeted by only an eerie silence?  What is more, it is a bit of fun.”

And now the really interesting bit.  These are the top 50 winning entries.

What have we said……..!

(Actually, scanning through these, I think we’re safe from invasion – malevolent or otherwise ;-))

Andrew Glester, Manchester

If you’ve been watching our television broadcasts, I’d like to apologise for everything before and after Carl Sagan’s Cosmos.

Karen Zold, Nailsea

Beautiful blue planet, teeming with life located on the edge of the Milky Way.  Fantastic views of the Andromeda Galaxy and beyond into infinity.  Perhaps the best location in the Universe ?1 Trillion Trillion Trillion Trillion ONO. Must be prepared to look after current resident flora and fauna

Jill Dawson, Isle of Man

My Dad has told me for 43 years I was left behind by an alien spaceship so to all my relatives out there PLEASE CALL ROUND FOR COFFEE I WOULD LOVE TO CATCH UP!!

Linda Irwin, McCall, ID, USA

We are energy of the creationist kind incarnated into carbon based bodies.  We have always been here since energy is only changed, never destroyed.  Who and where are you?

Martijn van vugt, Delft, Netherlands

Hilarious isn’t it? Wait till you see how we run our rock. Definitely worth the visit. Are you on MyOuterSpace, by the way?

Dennis Treleaven, London

Please get in touch and if you could confirm that the universe was not created by god it would answer a lot of arguements down here.

Robin Goos, Stockholm

Requesting interference from other species / civilizations. We could use some excitement.

Laura Pritchard, Kidlington

Probably best you don’t watch our films ET, Independence Day or Mars Attacks before making contact with us….

Natalie Smith, Bristol

Planet earth – thought it was light years ahead but recently collapsed into  banking black hole, seeks super star for sharing Milky Way, Mars and universal travel.

Ernest Long, Ireland

NO MISSIONARIES PLEASE

Chris Bergoch, Los Angeles

Hello.  Your work in our crop fields intrigues me. I would love to know how you do it!  Also, why be so mysterious?  Why not come down and say hello?  We’d love to meet you and become friends!

Mrs Munro, Nottingham

Did you think YOU were alone in the universe?!

John Tingay, Sheffield

Please send us photos of your celebrities.

Andrew Brown, Canmore, Alberta

For sale or trade: Several billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. All reasonable offers considered! Must pick up, can not ship.

Tomi Vollauschek, London

Please move on. Nothing to see here.

Amaral, Rio de Janeiro

Just observe. Keep away. This is a dangerous zone. Our divine entity is called Money. The people here may even  kill for their

deity. Do not try to understand.

John Moore, Poole

Help Wanted! Cleaners, caretakers and peacemakers required for extremely dirty and severely damaged planet.Honesty and integrity a must.We are a equal opportunitys’ employer, applicants of any shape or form will be considered.Blue Earth Agency or uww//earth.cos

Andrea Smith, Brighton

Can I have my frisbee back please?

Nicola, Birmingham

My name is Nicola and I am 11. Is anybody in space? Is anyone going to reply to me, because I am reallly interested in life in space.

David Risser, Chicago

We Taste Bad !

Deborah Hubbard, Pretoria

Hello, dear aliens. We tend to believe that we’re pretty bright and you’re weird, but I reckon it’s the other way around. Please pop in any time so we can find out. Come for coffee  we do that rather well.

Pete Marshall, Westcliff on sea

4 4 2, whats your favoured formation?

Vicky Haining, Northampton

Hi! If there’s anyone out there, feel free to come and visit, we don’t bite! Do you?!

Helen Cooper, Loughton

You aliens have the best fashion sense, green is ‘so in’ at the moment and those huge eyes are a fabulous look!

Will, Washington DC

01111001011011110111010100100000 01100001011100100110010100100000 01101110011011110111010000100000 0110000101101100011011110110111001100101

( this binary number translates as “you are not alone”..)

Reg Hewitt, Exeter

Hello and welcome to Planet Earth. In order to help you with your invasion you now have two options. If you want to make our world a better place, choose “1″; to follow the precedent of our current leader choose “hash”.”

Gary Hall, Dagenham

Sorry to drop this on you, but we’ve kinda wrecked our planet. Any chance we could come live with you? We’ve got beer…?

Martin Smith, Brighton

Vacancies for Traffic Wardens.  We are an equal opportunities employer.  Any life form may apply.  Reply to Human/inhuman Resources stating age (to nearest 1000 Earth years), carbon footprint and any special dietary or respiratory requirements (methane kits available).

Gordon McGuire, Wotton-Under-Edge

Hi.  Could I have a 9 inch meat feast, a margherita, 2 garlic breads and a bottle of diet coke; thanks.  Bye the way, is it still free delivery within 10 billion miles?

John Waite, Preston

Two thousand years ago, we had a very enlightening visit from the Creator’s Son. Has he been to visit you yet?

Sue Coggin, Hull

What should I pack?

James England, Walton-on-Thames

I’ve checked google maps but can’t find you. Where are you?

Steve Simpson, Arlington, Texas

Hello from earth! Should you seek our planet in order to find a new home because of excessive pollution on yours, go back. If you had to manipulate your craft around the space junk, that should tell you something about how we live!

Ann Barry, Usk, South Wales

What’s occurring up there? If you’re late again, dinner’s going in the dog, and I can’t deny it, that other lot don’t look too friendly from by yer.

Eric Rush, Bromley

PLANET for Sale. Water and some other resources Sun still works comes with moon. Could be used for spare parts.

Gavin Counahan, Eastbourne

OK fess up. What have you done with Elvis?

Andy Cain, Sheffield

Do you still have Neil Armstrongs golfball up there and if so can we have it back ?

Seema Kurup, Elgin

Hello! If you’re planning to visit our planet, please know you will need to remove all metal from your person, take your shoes off and submit to a full body scan, carry all liquids/gels/aerosols in clear plastic bottles no bigger than 3.4 oz,  surrender all cigarette lighters and batteries, pack all jams and jellies (but pies can be carried on) …oh yes, Welcome to the Earth!

Thomas K, Abu Dhabi

MY PURPOSE OF CONTACTING YOU IS TO SEEK YOUR HELP IN TRANSFERRING THE SUM OF FIVE MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS (USD 5, 000,000.00) TO A TRUSTED BANK ON YOUR PLANET.

Shawn Roberts, Sydney

MAYDAY MAYDAY ,,Celestial vessel Earth,Taking on water fast! ,require immediate assistance,,over.

Austin Lewis, Normal, IL

Hello.  My name is Austin Lewis, and I’m an artist.  Here, artists depict things as they are, or as they seem to the artist.  Sometimes we depict things that don’t exist.  What is art where you come from?

Solange Thomas, London

My message will include a group of prime numbers, and a binary code that, when stacked properly, shows a picture of a man waving, our planet location in our solar system, and a strand of DNA. I think the wave will indicates we’re friendly.

Doug Barnes, Dublin

Hi guys,Come and say hello! You have already made our mistakes ages ago, come and tip us off and save us a lot more grief!

Mike Bell, Eire

Hello. Contact our eternal father, who sent his only son jesus to our planet and he will explain all.

Alice Rook, Cleveland

Greetings from the 3td planet orbiting the big Ball of Fire. (a^2 + b^2 = c^2)(y = mx + b)(V = 4/3(pi)(r^3)

Mr Kelvin Bierton, Telford

Do you have crop circles on your planet ?

Chris, Brisbane, Australia

Dear Starlings, my inconsiderate neighbours’ all night partying and littering is intolerable. Please come and take them away. I’m confident that they would prove worthy experimental subjects and would help you understand just how easily we Earthlings are able to poop on our own doorstep.

Phil Darling, Stowmarket

Hello friends. This is a warning. My race is made of many types of characters, most are fun and good. It’s the ones that arent that make it dangerous for you. Give us a miss until we learn.

Georgios Mastrogiannis, Athens

What part does love have in your life?

Suzanne Rosen, Chigwell, Essex

Greetings from the pupils of GGSK College, Chigwell, Essex.  Why don’t you visit us one day – there is ample landing space for one spacecraft on the roof.  Please come on Friday, when we have Channa and Puri  for scool dinners.  It is especially tasty.

The 50 were selected by a panel of Penguin judges together with Graham Southorn, Editor of BBC’s Sky at Night Magazine. Each will receive a copy of Paul Davies book.

Also of Interest

David Brin here discusses SETI and particularly issues around transmitting TO the aliens

How would you ‘Break the Eerie Silence’ ?

Update 15th March – I’ve posted the top 50 winning messages HERE.

Update 13th March – Competition results. For those of you checking back for the 12th March winning messages, they don’t seem to have appeared yet.  Another eerie silence if you like. Watch this space.

It’s been a spacey couple of weeks here at Zoonomian.   What with the Royal Society’s meeting on astrobiology and the search for extra-terrestrial life (SETI), rapping ET-style, and a return to the Buck Rogers era.   And we’re not finished yet.

eerie silence jacket image

You might remember one of the speakers at the Royal Society event was physicist Paul Davies, who also has a new book coming out, The Eerie Silence: Are we alone in the Universe?.

I’ll be writing a full review of Eerie Silence in due course, but meantime you might want to take part in what looks like a fun competition, launched today by publishers Penguin UK together with National Science and Engineering Week.

They’re asking the question:

Is there anybody out there? What would you say if you could send a message into space?

Would you say hello, ask the meaning of life, share an insight or just complain about the weather?

As the organisers say, this is a rare opportunity to beam up to  5000 messages into space to celebrate the 50th anniversary of SETI, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, which is the subject of Davies’s book.

Paul Davies
Paul Davies

So get your thinking cap on, make your message funny, thoughtful or wise and do something extraordinary.

The best 50 messages, as chosen by a judging committee, will be posted at the Penguin website and also here on Zoonomian on 12 March, the first day of National Science and Engineering Week 2010 and in the national media. Winning entrants’ names and home location, only, may be credited at the foot of each message. In addition, the 50 winning entrants will each receive a copy of “The Eerie Silence: Are we Alone in the Universe?” by Paul Davies.

To send a message of no more than 40 words, simply go to www.penguin.co.uk/eeriesilence and enter your message.

Entries  will be accepted between 8th – 28th February 2010.

Winners notified on 3 March and the 50 winning entries will go public on 12 March 2010. For full details and Terms and Conditions, see the website.

Extra-terrestrials Invade Royal Society

(graphic: Tim Jones)

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have a grave announcement to make. Incredible as it may seem, both the observations of science and the evidence of our eyes lead to the inescapable assumption that those strange beings who landed in the Jersey farmlands tonight are the vanguard of an invading army from the planet Mars.”

Those words were spoken by a fictitious news reporter in Orsen Welles’s 1938 radio play ‘The War of the Worlds’ –  a broadcast that probably did more than any other event in the 20th century to embed the prospect of extra-terrestrial life in the popular imagination.

I was inspired to replay this old favourite after joining last week’s Royal Society discussion meeting on ‘The detection of extra-terrestrial life and the consequences for science and society‘. 

orson welles
Orson Welles presents ‘War of the Worlds’ on October 30th 1938

Listeners to Welles’s play are said to have run screaming into the streets, taking the Martian invasion for real. Yet that reaction, said Professor Albert Harrison from the University of California, Davis, has been overplayed and, in fact, many listeners followed much more rational courses of action.  Harrison’s comments are consistent with the Royal Society’s intent that this meeting explore beyond the bounds of natural science – to consider the social, cultural, and political impacts of the search and possible discovery of extra-terrestrial life.

The Royal Society
The Royal Society (Photo: Tim Jones)

It’s tricky to focus down 16 speakers and 14 hours of discussions, but for me everything feeds into three questions:

  • Is there life beyond the earth?

  • Is there intelligent life beyond the earth?

  • How might human beings react to the discovery of extra-terrestrial life?

(o.k., there’s also a significant ‘sub-plot’ around the possibility that life evolved on earth in several independent forms – more of which later.)

Echoing an early speaker, I’ll say up front that there is presently no evidence for the existence of extra-terrestrial life, intelligent or otherwise.  But that doesn’t mean it isn’t out there.  Sorry if that ruined the sense of chair-gripping suspense I’ve been building.

Lord Martin Rees
Lord Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society (photo:Sven Klinge)

Is there life beyond the earth?

Where life?

Strangely perhaps, the search for ET begins on Earth, in so far as understanding how terrestrial life came to exist and evolve tells us what to expect elsewhere.

But beyond the Earth, researchers are looking in two places :

(a) planets in our own solar system

(b) planets in orbit around other stars in our galaxy

Why life?

With evidence that physics and chemistry are uniform across the universe, the argument is that if we find life in one location, then why not in another.  It’s quite convincing if said quickly.

But conscious human life appears only at the end of a road full of hurdles, and we really need to understand how challenging each stage of the process is before raising expectations of a repeat performance.  When Pascale Ehrenfreund described the ubiquity of carbonaceous compounds in the universe, she did so against a history starting at the big bang, moving through the formation of chemical compounds, then on to  DNA, and  finally to life.  The sequence goes something like:

1. The universe came into existence at the Big Bang (including time and space, energy and matter)

2. Matter condensed into galaxies of gas and stars, and elements and chemicals were produced

3. Chemicals became arranged so they were able to self-replicate and behave as ‘life’ (RNA>DNA>cell formation, or alternative chemical arrangements that fulfill the same function)

4. Simple life evolved into more complex forms through Darwinian natural selection

5. Complex life forms evolved intelligence

6. Intelligent life forms became self-aware (consciousness)

My critique of these is that (2) and (4) are uncontroversial: we directly observe elements and chemicals, including organic molecules in deep space; and stage (4) is  simply the fact of Darwinian evolution.  (5) – intelligence – could be considered an extension of evolution; but, for me, (6) – consciousness – is a  separate deal.  That’s not because I think consciousness requires supernatural intervention to make it happen, but more to highlight how little understood is the process by which matter gets to understand and act upon itself.  If we’re so smart, where’s the AI – right?

Jumping back to (1) – the big bang – as the mechanism for the formation of our universe in isolation, that too is uncontroversial for many scientists.  Yet, speculative concepts like the multiverse have bearing on discussions about the probability of life forming.   This meeting avoided getting too far side-tracked into cosmological fundamentals and the more adventurous areas of scientific speculation.  Indeed, I thought Paul Davies, author of the The Mind of God and The Goldilocks Enigma – works that major in this territory – showed great restraint.

On what life actually is, I found it hard to pin down a universally shared definition, but most include the ability to self-replicate and to behave autonomously.  Other qualifying features might include complexity, the ability to grow and develop, and the presence of a nutrient-fed metabolism.  I also liked Baruch Blumberg’s reference to a test that involves comparing  the behaviour of live and dead chickens thrown into the air.

Astrobiology in a new Age of Wonder

Professor Steven Rose
Professor Steven Rose (photo:Sven Klinge)

For Blumberg, astrobiology and the search for ET represents a new Age of Wonder – driven by the Joseph Banks spirit found in Richard Holmes’s book of the same name, but enhanced through startling advances in technology.  Astrobiologists are asking themselves if the commonality of biologies discovered across the globe in Banks’s time will now be reproduced at the universal scale.

The planets in  our own solar system can be reached by physical probes,  but so-called exoplanets orbiting distant stars (but still in our galaxy) must be detected and analysed remotely with instruments like the Kepler space telescope.   This is an area where progress

Professor Charles Cockell
Professor Charles Cockell  “Biofilms not biospheres” (photo:Sven Klinge)

has been extremely rapid and rewarding since the first Jupiter type gas giant planets were discovered 15 years ago. Researchers already analysing ‘super earths’ (x10 earth mass), said Michel Mayor, were on the brink of accessing planets equivalent in size and position to Earth.  Still unresolvable as discs, exoplanets are detected from the way they change the apparent brightness and quality of light from the star-planet system.  When a planet passes in front, it blocks out some light, and the reduction is measured by what is effectively a giant light-meter – like Kepler.  Some new instruments in  the pipeline, such as Plato scheduled for 2018, will open up more than half the sky for exoplanet analysis, further increasing the chances of discovering life.

But the little things can impress most, and one of the highlights for me was Malcolm Fridlund’s slide showing a very subtle dip in a star’s brightness curve, corresponding not to a reduction due to shadowing, but to the loss of reflected light from the planet itself as it passed behind the star.  That somehow brought home the sensitivity of the technique.

Dr Malcolm Fridlund
Dr Malcolm Fridlund (photo:Sven Klinge)
Professor Baruch Blumberg
Professor Baruch Blumberg (photo:Sven Klinge)

Analysing the wavelength of light from these systems reveals chemicals in the exoplanet’s atmosphere that  we can compare with chemicals that are associated with life in our own biosphere (or biofilm as Cockell would have it).  For example, ozone, oxygen, methane, and water may indicate plant life.  And as Pascale Ehrenfreund explained, the starting materials for carbon based life are common throughout the universe: including long carbon chains, fullerenes and PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons).

While there’s been a push to see earth sized planets – because we know they work I guess – larger planets are not ruled out, although it was suggested plate tectonics might limit development on larger rocky worlds.  We know life can be surprisingly tough though, like the Earth-bound extremophile group chemolithotrophs, described by Charles Cockell, that can survive high temperatures, pressures, and strong saline solutions – extracting energy directly from rocks by oxidising iron.

Professor Pascale Ehrenfreund
Professor Pascale Ehrenfreund (photo:Sven Klinge)

So it was a little disappointing after all that to learn from Simon Conway Morris that conditions on Jupiter’s moon Europa may be too saline for life.  Maybe I’ve watched the movie 2010 too often, but I had Europa pegged as a top contender (according to Chris McKay, Saturn’s largest moon Enceladus is now a more likely prospect).

But Morris’s main aim was to demonstrate the ubiquity of evolutionary convergence, with reference to basic life forms that had shown a tendency to independently converge on improved or even optimal designs through natural selection.   This begs the question why, if life once started has little problem developing and converging across a  range of environments, is the universe not teaming with life and its tell-tale transmissions (an example of the Fermi Paradox discussed later).  Simon Conway Morris’s explanation is that basic life is indeed a (one off?) fluke.

Dr Catherine Cesarsky and Prof. Colin Pillinger
Dr Catherine Cesarsky and Prof. Colin Pillinger (photo: Sven Klinge)

Chris McKay’s ‘Second Genesis’ went some way to soften the prospect of life as a total fluke, his thesis being that we might find an independently developed tree of life in our own solar system.  Just finding life or its artifacts in the rocks of, say, Mars won’t do though, as we know there’s been a historic transfer of rocks (below sterilisation temperatures) between the Earth and Mars caused by ejection of material by asteroid strikes.

Professor Simon Conway Morris
Professor Simon Conway Morris (photo:Sven Klinge)
Dr Christopher McKay
Dr Christopher McKay (photo:Sven Klinge)

Indeed – we may ourselves be Martians !  (A number of Martian meteorites have been found on earth, identified by analysing the composition of trapped gas bubbles and comparing  it to samples analysed on Mars.  A meteorite was found on Mars by Viking, but not from Earth –  although such material is almost certainly there.)

Rather, life derived from a true second genesis would have to demonstrate features in its underlying structure, or building blocks, that must have arisen independently from our own tree of life, and will certainly not be part of it.

Is there intelligent life beyond the earth?

The second day’s discussions, chaired by Jocelyn Bell-Burnell and Martin Rees, focused on the search for intelligent extra-terrestrial life, or SETI, and how human beings might react to its discovery.

Maybe it’s a little unfair to suggest anyone working in this field is an inherent optimist, but I suspect such a condition is helpful.

At the start of this post, I listed the various stages or hurdles that must be jumped on the way to life.  But for Christian de Duve, opening the session, the appearance of life on Earth is simply the inevitable outcome of a chemical process; such that if the same chemistry occurs elsewhere – the same sort of life will appear.

Professor Christian de Duve
Professor Christian de Duve (photo: Sven Klinge)

De Duve’s thesis of life as a cosmic imperative does rely on the same physical as well as chemical conditions being reproduced, but for me he didn’t adequately address the qualitative difference between the reaction of a homogenous mix of chemicals, and more complex processes such as the formation of self-reproducing entities like cells (via RNA and DNA).  Assumptions around the inevitability of the switch from chemistry to ‘life chemistry’ are troubling.  But maybe I  just need to read De Duve’s book.

The Shadow Biosphere

Dr Paul Davies
Dr Paul Davies.  “Eerie Silence” (photo: Tim Jones, Darkroommatter.com)

Following Chris McKay’s discussion around a ‘Second Genesis’ in our solar system, Paul Davies followed similar motives with his concept of a more Earthbound ‘Shadow Biosphere’.  Davies’s research, described in his forthcoming book, The Eerie Silence, may be terrestrial, but can inform the off-world search.  The Shadow Biosphere, if it exists says Davies, will comprise unconventional (and unrecognised) life forms that have appeared and developed independently.

The lifeforms may have died out and be detectable only via ancient biomarkers, or they could be “under our noses” in the form of the largely overlooked extremophiles – those bugs that thrive variously in hot, high-pressure, salty and radiated environments.  Davies described ongoing research at the hot pools of Mono Lake, California, where the search is on for arsensic-based micro-organisms, where arsenic may have replaced the phosphorous found in the tree of life we already know.   Shadow organisms can thus look quite ordinary (whatever that means for an extremophile) but betray themselves by subtle but fundamental differences in their basic composition – such as inclusion of arsenic, or structure – such as the ‘handedness’ of their DNA.  As with Second Genesis, the work has obvious implications for  our view on the specialness of life-forming processes.

And while fishing around in hot pools might lack the superficial glamour of exoplanet and space research, the results could be of equal or greater significance.  Also, with potential Martian finds arguably compromised by the possibility of inter-planetary material exchanges, the discovery of alternative trees of life on Earth might provide a more robust argument for the prevalence of life in the greater universe.

Is there anybody…..out there!

Frank Drake with Arecibo dish

The attraction of SETI, officially celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, speaks for itself.   Discovering the extra-terrestrial lettuce would be nice, but we’d all rather have the salad recipe beamed in from Vega.

Director of the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, Frank Drake, has been on the case from the start, and with Director of the Center for SETI Research, Jill Tarter, has been listening for radio, and more recently laser, broadcasts since the 1960s.

To help understand what he was up against odds-wise in the search, Drake proposed his now famous equation to calculate the number of civilisations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible:

The Drake Equation
The Drake Equation (source: Wikipedia)

Scaled up calculations suggest there are likely to be ten to the power 20 Earth-like planets in the observable universe, suggesting that if the road to intelligent life is ubiquitous and mechanical (which is not a given), the outlook for detection looks positive.

However, the Fermi Paradox, based on an observation by Enrico Fermi that we don’t see any evidence of life, because it either isn’t there or habitually destroys itself, runs counter to this enthusiasm.  And as Paul Davies commented, the odds represented in the Drake equation terms (for and against life) stack up exponentially.   Bottom line, I think these sorts of consideration should cause us to revisit any intuitive sense we might have for the inevitability of life – especially those of us from the Sagan “billions” generation.

Dr Frank Drake
Dr Frank Drake (photo: Tim Jones)
Dr Jill Tarter
Dr Jill Tarter (photo:Sven Klinge)

Apart from radio waves and laser beams, aliens might give themselves away in other ways associated with their use of advanced technologies.  One such technology is the Dyson Sphere.  Proposed by Freeman Dyson, the sphere would be built by advanced civilisations to completely encapsulate their star, and thereby capture or control its energy more efficiently.  Such spheres would glow in the infra-red, and serious Earth-based studies have been made to look for them.  I’ve previously referenced science fiction author Stephen Baxter’s use of the Dyson Sphere in his novel Time Ships (in this blog post).

Understandably perhaps, the SETI camp don’t appear to dwell on factors that might dampen enthusiasm for the cause.  For example, it was pointed out that the intensity of our own incidental and accidental radio emissions into space has decreased over the years with improved efficiency and new modes of non-radiative information transfer – like fibre optics.  So maybe the aliens don’t glow as brightly as we’d like.   Also, any laser communications we might detect would necessarily have to be altruistically targeted by the senders with the specific purpose of communicating with alien life.  Maybe they’re doing that.    It’s not that I’m being negative on any of this, but rather that, all in all, I walked away from this session as unsure as I was when when it started as to how much of a long shot SETI really is.

How might human beings react to the discovery of extra-terrestrial life?

References to the likely social, cultural and political impacts of the discovery of, or contact with, extra-terrestrial life were variously touched upon by earlier speakers.  In this session, I hoped we’d come to some sort of focus, and discuss scenario-based questions such as: “What would happen if Hitler’s 1936 Olympics speech was broadcast back at us?” –  as happened in the film Contact.   That didn’t happen, with anthropologist Kathryn Denning seeming to actively discourage the consideration of specific scenarios.  I took the point that we can’t fully prepare, but still found the approach over-conservative.  Anyhow, we were told there are several groups now looking into ‘post-detection issues’, and I look forward to seeing their findings.

Dr Kathryn Denning
Dr Kathryn Denning (photo:Sven Klinge)
Professor Albert Harrison
Professor Albert Harrison (photo:Sven Klinge)

Albert Harrison’s aforementioned analysis of Orson Welles’s War of The Worlds broadcast was entertaining, and made me realise the importance of that event as a social experiment – however unintended (how many points do we have on this particular graph?).  On a related topic, I was surprised at the level of disagreement amongst the academics on the question of whether aliens would be benevolent or malevolent.

Professor Ted Peters
Professor Ted Peters (photo:Sven Klinge)

Ted Peters presented research results on how various religious groups and atheists thought a discovery of ET would impact them personally and their ( if appropriate) religious creed.

I’m oversimplifying, but in summary: theists generally felt  they could individually accommodate ET, but their orthodoxy less so; those from more deist or spiritual religions – like Buddism (which I hardly consider a religion in the same vein as the others) had few if any problems – personally or as a group.  In general, it  seemed to be ‘the other guy’ and his religion that would have the problem, not the  person asked.  Ho hum…

Interestingly, the atheists felt religious people would have more of a problem than the religious themselves reported, and related to that in questions, Paul Davies suggested the results were more suggestive of religious people not knowing enough about their own religion.

Professor Ivan Almar
Professor Ivan Almar (photo:Sven Klinge)

The event wound up with presentations from Hungarian Academy of Science speaker Ivan Almar, and Marian Othman from the  UN Office for Outer Space Affairs.  Almar’s subject matter – scales – was for me a little dry and mechanical for a closing session, but prompted a lively Q&A around issues such as the representation of high-impact/low-probability events, and the use and mis-use of scale data by different groups (e.g. experts, the media).

Othman’s presentation was more of an insight into the workings of the UN committee structure, illustrated through its handling of the topic of Near Earth Objects.  Her sharing of the various procedures,  political considerations, and protocols provided something of a pro-forma for dealing with issues of extra-terrestrial life.

Dr Mazlan Othman
Dr Mazlan Othman (photo:Sven Klinge)

All in all, the session was notable for the way audience delegates, the critical mass of which I suspect hailed from the more natural scientist end of the spectrum (physicists, astrobiologists), engaged in discussions that necessarily fringed on speculation.   Scientists rightly don’t like to speak on topics where they lack either expertise, complete data, or both of those; but the judicial placement of appropriate disclaimers led to a lively debate.

I’d like to end this post with a noble  declaration to the effect that the real take-away from the meeting was that the search for ET is as much about the search for an understanding of ourselves as anything else.  And while I think that’s probably true, the real thrill for me was to spend two days mixing it with a bunch of bright folk who, in these days of market focused short-termism, are still able to pursue  such a worthy vision.  I had great fun.

little green men

EXTRAS!

1. Listen to Jonathan Chase and his Astrobiology Rap !

Jonathan Chase provides some light entertainment

2. Hear the Mercury Theatres’s War of the Worlds radio play here.

3. Hear my interview with astrobiologist Lewis Dartnell here (in spite of the background noise, I think this is a great interview):

4. Video of the separate presentation Paul Davies made after the meeting is here at the Royal Society’s website

5. 4th March 2010 Article in the Times re Monolake shadow biosphere

Update 2 Dec 2010: NASA report Mono Lake bacteria incorporating arsenic into their DNA (Alok Jha in The Guardian)