SETI 2020: A Roadmap for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
The point of view of the SETI project, of course, differs from Webb's. For more than 50 years, SETI researchers have been inspired by the following reasoning: "In a cosmos filled with billions of galaxies containing trillions of stars, is it possible that Earth, a world of inconsequential size and ordinary position, is alone in housing life that can discern the natural order? It is deeply incongruous to suppose that our enormous Universe is only sparsely occupied. To do so requires the belief that humans are exceedingly special. In view of astronomy's history, such a view is clearly suspect." This book reviews the history of the search and lays out a plan for SETI's next 18 years. The book presents sober science that holds out an awesome prospect should the search succeed: "We would come to view ourselves and our place in the Universe in a very different light. The changes would be as profound as those resulting from the revolutionary discoveries of Galileo and Darwin, which changed our understanding of our place in the solar system and of our biological evolutionary heritage."Editors of Scientific American