The purpose of Cosmic Zoo: Complex Life on Many Worlds is to answer the question: “Are we alone in the universe, or is there a good chance that there are thinking, talking, machine-making creatures out there for us to talk to?” Not just bacteria or trilobites. The authors say they think, “Smart, tool-making creatures may arise on other worlds, maybe on many other worlds.”
But then they admit, “We see no examples of intelligent, radio-transmitting, spaceship-making life in the sky. So there must be what Robin Hanson calls ‘the Great Filter’ between the existence of planets and the occurrence of a technological civilization.” Most of the book is about the search for the location of this “Great Filter” on the timeline of the evolutionary development of life. They note that some of these “major steps or transitions are likely and some are highly unlikely”. They then assert that, “Once life has arisen on a world, complex life is highly likely to evolve.”
But whether or not this true, does the existence of complex life mandate that a technological civilization must arise? The authors note that, “Animals that show intelligence are rather rare.” They then cite some “potential prerequisites for technological advanced intelligence” such as neural complexity, manual dexterity, a controllable energy source, and social interaction. But they make no quantitative estimate of the likelihood of each, nor of the likelihood of all four appearing together. They do, however, “speculate that it would likely be rare, much rarer than animal or plant-like organisms.” How much rarer seems to be left up to the opinion of the reader. The authors do note, however that the “Great Filter”, if it exists, must be in the step from primitive organizations to a technological civilization.
This is hardly a novel opinion, but it’s one that’s difficult to refute. A genuinely novel idea found in this book is that the default position for genes in a eukaryotic genome is the “off” position, whereas in a prokaryotic genome the default position is the “on” position. This could be seen as another major transition, and one that might place the “Great Filter” at the prokaryotic-eukaryotic transition, much earlier in the evolutionary timeline than the authors suggest. This has been proposed by other authors in the field, most notably Nick Lane, in his book The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origin of Complex Life. Of such differences are interesting debates made.
This book makes a valuable contribution to the study of astrobiology, and may be of particular interest to those with a background in biological chemistry. However, anyone with an interest in the possibility of intelligent life in the universe will find this an entertaining and engaging book, and one well worth acquiring.
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Amazon CustomerBewertet in Großbritannien am 25. Juni 2018
Is there anything or anyone out there?
