Hello? Anybody there?

Paul Davies discusses intelligent life in his new book. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.



Joel Kontinen

Yesterday, as I was reading Nature, Chris McKay’s review of Paul Davies’ book The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence/ Are We Alone In The Universe? caught my eye.

In Eerie Silence Davies discusses the SETI project that has used radio telescopes to scan the skies for signs of extraterrestrial life. After 50 years of searching, they have found absolutely nothing. Not a single signal that would suggest intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe.

Davies discusses the possibility that intelligent life might be very rare outside the Earth.

However, Davies also ventures into the brave new world of science fiction, speculating that in the distant past aliens might have left a message in our DNA.

He thus acknowledges that DNA looks like it has been designed. Perhaps there is a more traditional solution to this dilemma. Might the answer be found in a book called Genesis?


Source:

McKay, Chris. 2010. Is Anybody Out There? (Review of Paul Davies’ book The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence/ Are We Alone In The Universe?) Nature 464: 7285, 34 (4 March).