num_pages: 241
description: 50 years ago a young astronomer named Frank Drake pointed a radio telescope at nearby stars in the hope of picking up a signal from an alien civilization. Thus began one of the boldest scientific projects in history the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). But after a half century of scanning the skies astronomers have little to report but an eerie silenceeerie because many scientists are convinced that the universe is teeming with life. The problem argues the leading physicist-astrobiologist Paul Davies is that weve been looking in the wrong place at the wrong time &amp; in the wrong way. Davies should know. For more than three decades he's been closely involved with SETI &amp; now chairs its Post-Detection Taskgroup charged with deciding what to do if were confronted with evidence of alien intelligence. In this extraordinary book he shows how SETI has lost its edge &amp; offers a new exciting road map for the future. Davies believes our search so far has been overly anthropocentric: we tend to assume an alien species will look think &amp; behave like us. He argues that we need to be far more expansive in our efforts &amp; in this book he completely redefines the search challenging existing ideas of what form an alien intelligence might take how it might try to communicate with us &amp; how we should respond if it does. A provocative &amp; mind-expanding journey The Eerie Silence will thrill fans of science &amp; science fiction alike.
language: English
title: The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence
publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt