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Editorial Reviews
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"Experts in many diverse disciplines have come together to form a new science: astrobiology," report astronomer David Koerner and biologist-writer Simon LeVay.
"Experts in many diverse disciplines have come together to form a new science: astrobiology," report astronomer David Koerner and biologist-writer Simon LeVay.
It is a fundamentally new enterprise, a focus of intense excitement and energy, and a recipient of huge government resources. This science has just one ambition: To understand Life in its universal context and, in doing so, to understand ourselves.
Koerner and LeVay have no particular thesis to advance about astrobiology and extraterrestrial life, no axe to grind: they have talked to everybody from Stephen Jay Gould and Robert Weinberg to the (human) denizens of Area 51. Their evenhanded overview moves from the origin of life on Earth to the search for life in our solar system to the search for planets around other stars to SETI, UFO-logy, and the anthropic principle. Since each of these topics can easily take up a whole book (or a shelf-full), theirs is something of a roller-skate tour, but one that misses no major issues. Balanced between the Copernican "principle of mediocrity" and the rare earth hypothesis of Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee, Here Be Dragons is an accessible, engaging guide to a deeply stirring question: "Is there anybody out there?" --Mary Ellen Curtin
From Publishers Weekly
Exobiology (or cosmic biology), the scientific search for life beyond Earth, "resembles a brainstorming session, with many discordant voices," according to this up-to-date report that mirrors that ferment. Koerner, a planetary scientist, and LeVay, a neuroanatomist, favor the view that technologically advanced civilizations are common in our galaxy and beyond, though many of their colleagues disagree. Their heady tour skips from "extraterrestrial environments" right here on Earth (Antarctica, Death Valley, etc.) where NASA scientists are investigating extreme environments believed to resemble conditions on other planets or moons, through the SETI Institute in California, whose radio telescopes scan the skies for transmitting civilizations, to the Bios Group, a Santa Fe start-up company that uses complexity theory to explore the intrinsic rules underlying the growth of evolving organisms or human institutions. Koerner has used the Hubble Space Telescope to study the birth of planets, and the book presents the latest evidence that planetary systems do indeed swirl around many stars besides our sun. The authors include a superficial, dismissive chapter on UFOs and reported alien contact. But their open-mindedness within the establishment field of exobiology, an area that is now the "recipient of huge government resources," is manifest as they contemplate multiverse models of coexisting universes or attend a NASA workshop where astronomers, engineers and futurists discuss antimatter propulsion and laser-powered craft. Koerner and LeVay have a gift for helping the uninitiated over technical terrain, aided by clear writing, intuitive examples, color and b&w photos, and drawings. (Feb.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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