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Planetary Dreams: The Quest to Discover Life Beyond Earth

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"Planetary Dreams" is not science fiction. It is a clear-headed, and yet exceptionally entertaining, discussion of the likelihood of life on other worlds and of why space exploration should be an important goal for those of us on earth. Shapiro displays his twin talents as rigorous biochemist and fascinating story-teller. This is an important book for anyone interested in the future of our own species.

I had this book on my shelf for over a year before I took it down for a read. I thought I might be bored by it, since it is a popular treatment of a subject I know pretty well. But Shapiro brought the subject to life in a rather interesting way, dealing not only with the particular issues asociated with the chemistry of life's origin, but with the deeper philosophical issues that lie behind the debate. I especially liked his illuminating flight of fancy entitled "A Dinner Out of time," which features Frederich Engels, Herbert Spencer, and Teilhard De Chardin (Marxist, libertarian, and Christian exponents of the idea of progress in nature, respectively) at one table, and Jacques Monod, Steven Jay Gould, Fred Hoyle, and William Jennings Bryan (all opposed to the idea) at the other. Shapiro is right on the mark when he asserts that the philosophical bias of the opposing camps has a strong role in directing their interpretations of the data, whether of Earth's history, the Viking results, of the Alan Hills meteorite. He is also right in his thesis stating what the stakes in this apparently abstract controversary actually are. All in all, a fine book.

In science, scepticism comes easily - it's part of the job. If you are fluent with metaphor, as Shapiro certainly is, analyses of others' work can be scathing. In this book he surveys many ideas and thoughts on life's origins. Nearly all are lacking some facet or poorly conceived in his view. His ire is fiercely aroused over laboratory attempts to duplicate life's beginnings. Our understanding of prebiotic conditions is clearly too limited. He insisted the answer lies in Nature's processes. We don't know enough to duplicate them. Since our laboratory research has failed, he argues, we must seek answers elsewhere - off our home world.

As he develops his theme, Shapiro spares no effort in deriding what he deems inadequate. The prominence of any figure or idea simply crumbles under his penetrating gaze. If the work meet his qualification of "extraordinary proof", he demolishes it with scornful imagery. His critiques have led his colleagues to deem him "Dr No" - an appellation he relishes.

Nor does he fail to adapt any mechanism to further his position. He even enlists biblical allegory - albeit rather twisted in his hand. Knowing the biblical myth of a "creation week" is outdated, he simply changes the metaphor. He crams the 12 billion year history of the Cosmos into a seven day framework. In this structure he also places two "schools" of ideas about life - the Christian Fundamentalists and the followers of the Anthropic Principle. The former relies on one of the multitude of "Bibles". The latter accepts scientific observations of Nature, but deems the whole Cosmos is in place just for humanity. Countering this unusual mix is Shapiro's "Sour Lemon School" which sees life's origins as a fluke. We are likely alone in the universe, they claim, since conditions for life are too critical.

Understanding how life originates and evolves, he stresses, is too important to our future. Since he dismisses laboratory attempts to resolve the issue, he uses past space exploration as a foundation for a new programme. Deeming his own philosophy "Cosmic Evolution", asking that a "new story" of life be written. The elements of the story are difficult to perceive because they're distant. Some hints are visible, which he presents in some detail. As an introduction, he describes the "replication learned from clay crystals" proposal of Graham Cairns Smith with slight nod of approval. Gunther Wachtershauser's life formation on pyrite crystals receives a bit more approbation. Shapiro considers it worth further investigation. Developing his plot, he then turns to meteoritic evidence for possible life, but it's Mars that seizes his attention. NASA, he argues, dismissed too readily the data indicating organic material on "the Big Orange". To help him finish his "new story" further effort must follow. He also entertains the possibility of life on satellites of the "gas giant" planets. Even, he suggests, in the atmospheres of those planets.

None of this exploration will take place, he recognises, unless clear goals are developed. His countrymen a reluctant to part with tax dollars for such programmes. They see little result from planetary exploration. This is the chief obstacle, but he knows how to overcome it. Space exploration needs more and better publicity. Improved public knowledge is essential if the species expects to survive. Shapiro aknowledges that too many people retain adherence to old myths - a situation only better education can overcome. He even alludes to similar attitudes in China's Ming dynasty. An educated outlook then, he argues, might have changed the course of European history. We face a bigger challenge. The stars may hold answers to life's beginnings. They might also become refuges for future life here. A start must be made. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Reading Planetary Dreams: The Quest to Discover Life Beyond Earth was an exquisite pleasure for me. I couldn't skip forward to the chapters on solar system exploration because I wanted to enjoy every last single word. I have always believed that it was possible to express important scientific ideas so they could be easily understood, but Bob Shapiro has shown how really well it can be done. The different technical areas involved in exploring the planets for life are well explained for the non-specialist. Professor Shapiro has reviewed all the pertinent scientific areas, astronomy, chemistry, biology, computational complexity, and more. And he includes the ideas of an amazing number of authors - Aristotle and Asimov, Bradbury and von Braun, Clarke and Copernicus, Dante and Darwin, and on and on.

My initial interest in the book Planetary Dreams was professional. I work at NASA and am involved in Astrobiology, the search for life in the universe. Dr. Robert Shapiro is well known in this area because of his work on understanding the origins of life and developing methods to search for nonterrestrial life. Exotic life in our solar system may not be based on carbon or use water as a solvent.

By reading Planetary Dreams, I have gained a better, firmer, clearer, wider understanding of the scientific world view. I can easily imagine a reader having his or her life changed by reading this book. I was so interested in Planetary Dreams that I postponed seeing the new Star Wars movie until after I finished the book. And Planetary Dreams is better entertainment and much better philosophy than the movie, and it indicates a worthy future quest for the human race. I loved every word. Everyone interested in life and the universe should read this book.

Planetary Dreams is a superb book full of interesting information and ideas. I particularly liked the fresh and inspiring ideas in the last two chapters. Robert Shapiro, a well regarded scientist, is not afraid to express his visions of the future of space exploration along with his solid science.

This is the best book I've read on the "problem" of the evolution of life and its probability throughout the universe. He reviews all of the major theories and gives up-to-date critiques. I concluded that at bottom the only reason for not believing that life is common in the universe is the argument of incredulity: "I can't imagine how life could have evolved, so therefore it must either be exceedingly rare or miraculous." In fact, there's no reason for believing that there is anything especially unusual about our solar system or our planet Earth, so, following the Copernican Principle, life is probably everywhere.

I bought this book largely because of the very favorable reviews here. By page 70 I was ready to fling it across the room and give up on it -- I was getting nothing useful out of it, and I was seriously irritated by the style. Here is an example from page 67: "[Helmholtz was] an incredibly prolific man ... a physiologist, physicist, and physician (he had an affinity for the professions that started with "physi")." Now a joke like that might get chortles of glee from the peanut"~ gallery, but I can definitely do without it. What was Shapiro thinking? Who is his intended audience? "~ book. Shapiro is carrying LOTS of baggage, he has a huge agenda that more or less stays hidden as he describes what other people think. He wants desperately for humans to explore and colonize the Solar System and the Universe."~ same way we've treated the Earth? Anyway -- this book is pretty good in sum but if you want a straightforward picture, buy Malcolm Walter's or Bill Schopf's book instead of this. the same person, it's scary. It's even a little scary that after reading "Planetary Dreams" I can't entirely be sure.

This is a subject that I am very interested in. However I found the book quite boring to read. Trying to make it clear, to the general reader he ended out boring, someone who knows a little more.

I found the book being quite bad. The fundamental problem in this subject is the Femni paradox. If they are so many out there, then at least one would be a space faring. If so then estimates vary as to how quickly they could colonise the galaxy. A conservative figure would be between 10 to 300 million years. This period in galaxy history is nothing. If so, we should not have to look at all. Evidence of there existence would be everywhere. The writer very briefly talks about this, then goes off into a tangent and leaves it. Either he has never read any book that discusses this (eg Frank Tipler) or ignores them. In either case its an issue.

Some of his history as well is a bit dubious like his argument about the Ming dynasty navy stopping of exploration. This he claims left their place to be filled by Europeans. The Ming's unlike the Europeans were not traders. There is no evidence to suggest that they would become traders. Their exploration ships showed that China had no enemies in the South. The only result would be, that they would have to spend large sums of money. Those resources were needed, as the Ming bureaucrats stated, where they faced a real threat in the North. This history would prove them correct. And history suggests that the real lesson is that if research is not profitable (in an economic sense) then goverments can and will pull the plug.

The writer goes on and on making some quite fantastic claims that make life far more possible, then it obviously is in reality. Most evidence now seems to suggest that life is very rare. For example recent evidence suggests that water is less important to Mars history then he suggests.

Although I approve of more research for space, this writer often seems to be more on the political rather then scientific.

For years scientists have been dicovering the limitations the universe puts on life. In other words, life is very rare. Conservative estimates put one Earth-like planet per galaxy. Ironically it is often the SETI-pushers whom discover these life-limiting constants (i.e. Carl Sagan) but wishful thinking gets in their way. Perhaps their personal philosophy or religion tells them there "must" be millions of worlds, but wishful thinking must give way to reality.

None of the planetery systems thus found could support life. The "millions of stars, so there must be millions of worlds" argument doesn't hold. Because the requirements for life elimate perhaps 99% of those stars. Its time people stop these fantasys. Try reading real science in Denton's "Nature's Destiny" or the new book "Rare Earth." The "Sagan Paradigm" is dead.