Customer Reviews

The Biological Universe: The Twentieth Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate and the Limits of Science

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book was incredibly good; in fact, surprisingly good. It's got all the trappings of an academic book--numerous footnotes, a university press publisher--but the writing style is lively and engaging. The author goes through developments in the field of ETI during the twentieth century--life on Mars, UFOs, SETI, extrasolar planets, etc--presenting the different sides of the various controversies. This may be the best book ever written on the subject. Readers should also check out Ken Croswell's book PLANET QUEST, about the discovery of extrasolar planets, a likely prerequisite for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Steven J. Dick is an historian with a broad academic background both in the humanities and in the sciences. The present book of nearly 600 pages will establish his reputation even more. Its sub-title, "the Twentieth Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate and the Limits of Science" reveals what is the book's focus, and also gives a hint of its broad philosophical scope. For though Dick's main theme is the astronomers' efforts to find out whether there is life on other heavenly bodies than our own earth, he is careful to relate it to the astronomical world-picture of the time. He sets forth in sufficient detail the arguments used to support or reject the idea of extra-terrestrial life. His presentation is clear and informative, with a minimum of technical jargon. Readers of this book will get a good grasp of the development of astronomical practice and theory after Copernicus and Newton, both in the scientific community and among the general public.

Of course the main meat of the book is the tremendous rise of interest in matters of outer space. On the unsophisticated popular level, this means mainly "little green men from Mars", fanciful accounts of Star Wars, eked lout by UFOs -- Flying Saucers. Dick's perspective includes these: he notes that many future scientists, including Carl Sagan and several future Nobel laureates, devoured science fiction of this kind in their early teens. As a serious historian, Dick tries to account for how popular culture and the scientific elite influenced each other. Positively, since public interest made it possible to raise money for building ever more sophisticated and expensive astronomical instruments and space probes, including the Hubble space telescope. Negatively, since the sensationalism of the popular press, radio and television (including Orson Welles's extraordinary radio broadcast in 1938, "War of the Worlds", and later TV dramas about space adventures such as "Star Trek", tended to hurt the reputation of scientists who participated in space projects. Dick consistently takes the view that scientific research cannot progress without the trial and error of creative hypotheses: the very essence of hypothesis testing.

True, we still do not have any proof of life or conscious intelligence on other planets than the earth, nor around other stars in our own galaxy, the Milky Way, nor in the billions upon billions of galaxies around us. But thanks to the adventurous research projects of the latter half of the 20th century, with radio telescopes and the Hubble space telescope, and also the landings on the Moon , Mars and Venus, and finally the grand, Government-supported project of SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence), where Carl Sagan was an important actor, we now know much more than we did around 1900. The quest will go on, strengthened by the arguments elaborated in the lively 20th century debates.

To complement Dick's historian's perspective, I strongly recommend "Our Cosmic Origin" by A. Delsemme, a prominent astronomer specializing on comets. His history starts with the BIg Bang, some fifteen billion years ago.

In recent years, science has given us a new worldview. The universe now seems much friendlier to life than it was in the old cosmology of lifeless rocks and stars. Steven Dick captures this new worldview in THE BIOLOGICAL UNIVERSE. It is easy to understand, breathtaking in its broad sweep of decades of debate and progress, and highly relevant for understanding today's science.

This book is subtitled "the twentieth century extraterrestrial life debate and the limits of science." In fact, it is more than that. Science historian Stephen Dick describes a new paradigm of the universe that integrates biology. Where once we seemed lost in a vast and empty Cosmos, now we can credibly argue that we may be part of a living universe.

Dick sets the stage by surveying the debates over the existence of life and intelligence beyond the Earth up to the beginning of the 20th century, seeing the extraterrestrial life debate as a struggle for a world view that has advanced in stages. He connects the plurality of worlds with the decline of anthropocentrism, describing the latter as one of the major intellectual changes of the past century. He then describes how Percival Lowell's theories about Mars demonstrated the limits of astronomical observation. He goes into scientific theories about the origins of planets before discussing images of extraterrestrials in literature and the arts. Dick takes on the UFO controversy in an admirably objective way. He reviews scientific theories about the origin and evolution of life before describing the modern search for radio signals known as SETI. Dick argues convincingly that we have seen the birth of a new science: astrobiology. He concludes by discussing some of the implications of possible future contact with an extraterrestrial civilization. In his summary, he describes the triumph of an evolutionary view of the Cosmos, and the emergence of the biological universe as a worldview. This is a basic work for any serious student of the extraterrestrial life issue.

The Book is certainly one of a kind, in that it even when it was not the original goal of the author to follow a very detailed evolution in human thought processes throughout time..one can certainly take this aspect as a very interesting and outstanding one. By exposing the evolution of the formulation of the necessary premises upon which an extraterrestrial life was/is supposed to exist, it is showing the evolutionary steps taken by human logic until today's scientific method. Thus, starting from the "known" existing historical records of the discussions around the possibility of an exterrestrial intelligence, one can track this evolution as well as view the slow drift from a dictatorial role played by the Church and religion in philosophical/scientific debates to a totally religiously independent scientific debate held nowadays.

Steven J. Dick has wrote a good book on extraterrestrial life and the history of the studying of ET life.

The book was good and I do recommend it but some of the first 1/3 was slow going for me. Many, many persons sited, dates and theories from the ancients study and beliefs of life on other than our planet to the end of the twentieth century. I had to go slow and come back for all the names and dates to sink in. I really wanted to learn and understand everything in this book. However the first 1/3 of the book, I was only able to absorb about an hours worth of reading at a time without my mind wandering. The information was excellent but a little dry.

The book was not too technical but is not one you can breeze through. If you want to get all the information its going to take time.

I'll give a 5 star to the research Mr. Dick did. On the bottom of the pages there must be hundreds and hundreds of bibliography sites to go to further explain the topics Steven wrote. Its obvious this was book took lots of research and time.

We see many different topics including the history from ancient times to the end of the twentieth century on the thoughts of life on other planets. Also the different ideas on the evolution of life. The Viking mission to Mars to try to find evidence of life is shown. Also my favorite part of the book SETI ( 5 stars) is shown in detail. The Cyclops project is shown as a massive multi hundreds of Radio Astronomy huge dishes to search for ET signals is shown and NASA's involvement and the dropping of the program due to too high a price tag. The different religions and their effects on the idea of intelligent ET life is shown ( INMO 3 stars) and the belief and non belief.

Many, many scientists are shown and their theories and contributions to the evolution on the existence or non existence of life in the universe. There is even a picture of a very young Carl Sagan when he was an assistant professor at Harvard. Also Dr Drake and his famous Drake equation to show an approximation of the amount of habitable intelligent ET worlds in our galaxy.

Some interesting pictures and old sci fi artwork. Lots of other topics.

I was very impressed with all the reference the reader can go to for more information. It looks like months and months worth of addition reading on the various subjects is possible.

Also the influence of Science fiction (HG Wells and others) adding interest to the question of ET life is shown as well as a history of UFO sightings and scientist deliberately not wanting to get involved as to not destroy their reputations is shown.

Steven J Dick wrote a good book with lots of great information on the history of man's attempt to find ET life. It would of been 5 stars but for me I had to slow down in lots of the book and go back a few times to absorb all the names,dates,theories and information. Not that technical just a little dry in some areas and difficulty locking on for extended periods of time. Recommended.... 4 stars.

I looked over this book and Life on Other Worlds: The 20th Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate. They seem to be the same book with different titles. Just a heads up.