The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence

by David Lamb

Is the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence a genuine scientific research programme? David Lamb evaluates claims and counter-claims, and examines recent attempts to establish contact with other intelligent life forms. He considers the benefits and drawbacks of this communication, how we should communicate and whether we actually can. He also assesses competing theories on the origin of life on Earth, discoveries of former solar planets, proposals for space colonies and the consequent technical and ethical issues.

Genres: Space

220 pages, Hardcover

First published February 8, 2001

About the author

David Lamb's work has appeared in numbers publications, from National Geographic to Sports Illustrated. He has been a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, an Alicia Patterson Fellow and a wrier-in-residence at the University of Southern California. Lamb is the author of six books on subjects as diverse as Africa and minor league baseball. His most recent book is "Vietnam, Now: A Reporter Returns". He is a member of the Maine Newspaper Hall of Fame.

Reviews

[John Carter McKnight]

A book on SETI written out of History & Philosophy of Science? Sounds interesting and useful. Alas, this isn't that book. Despite the author's background, maybe 10 pages applies HPS theories to SETI. Most of the rest is gracelessly written boilerplate, the history of thought about ET and a review of planetary science that's been done scores of times, and almost always better.

Beyond being a bull in the china shop of prose, Lamb has produced a work that reads like it was dictated into transcription software and handed to the publisher. There are word transpositions, endless duplication, inconsistencies of form, and outright factual errors.

In short, what's good about this book can be gotten elsewhere, and what's bad, beyond being terribly distracting, renders this of near-zero, if not negative, utility.