Rare earth
Subtitle: why complex life is uncommon in the universe
By: Peter D. Ward, Donald Brownlee.
Contributors: Brownlee, Donald.
Publisher: Copernicus
Published: 2003
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 335
Subjects: Life on other planets; Exobiology
Description: "With a new preface and updated throughout, this first paperback edition of Ward and Brownlee's ground-breaking and controversial Rare Earth marshals data from geology, astronomy, and biology to put forth a radical hypothesis: While primitive organisms such as microbes are very likely abundant across the galaxies, advanced life, depending as it does on a myriad of special circumstances, is altogether another story. In a thought-provoking departure from the widely held view that there must be countless civilizations of intelligent beings out there, Ward and Brownlee suggest that multicellular life-forms, let alone life-forms with whom we'd be able to communicate, must be exceedingly rare."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.