Marc Flemming
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Registered: Jan 2003
Local time: 07:55 AM
Location: Santa Cruz
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Is there anybody out there?
Grinspoon's pretty sure there's alien civilization somewhere, and he has a lot of fun telling us why.
Not many scientists have the reputation of being witty or entertaining, even when their subject matter is rich with possibility. But more and more scientists are allowing their Renaissance sides to emerge and publishing books explaining complex, scientific subjects and debates in lively prose.
David Grinspoon, principal scientist in the Department of Space Studies at Boulder's Southwest Research Institute and an adjunct professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado, is one of those. His first book, "Venus Revealed" (1997) explored Earth's erstwhile "twin" (turns out the relationship is much more fraternal — if even that — than identical) in loving detail, making the book as poetic and awestruck as it was informed.
Now Grinspoon steps into the Cosmos-sized shoes of the late Carl Sagan with "Lonely Planets," the best, most entertaining examination of the possibility of other life in the universe since Sagan's best work. And he's got a head start: Grinspoon grew up around Sagan, a family friend.
Like Sagan, he brings a joyous, open, even boisterous enthusiasm — "billions and billions!" — to his writing. If you think a survey of "natural philosophical" history regarding the possibility of alien life might be dry, think again. There's something here for a wide audience, from scientists to dreamers to fans of UFOs.
You can tell Grinspoon is having fun early on, when he describes the delight he takes in not just hard science, but the "fringe" beliefs and tales of UFO abductions.
"Without really trying I've picked up my share of alien paraphernalia: beach towels, glow pops, rolling papers, magnets, a little green dancing statuette, and even a pipe-smoking-alien lawn gnome. ... Fortunately, many on all sides of the UFO debates approach the question with a proper dose of humor," he writes. "But what balance to strike? After all, dammit Jim, I'm a scientist, not a comparative sociologist."
And with that, he's off. UFOs, Roswell, cattle mutilations and the like get all the funky press, but for my money, the best part of Grinspoon's cosmic ride is actually the first two-thirds of the book, in which he walks the reader through the history of the universe, the birth of Earth, how life developed and how humanity has gradually had to face the harsh realities of our nearby fellow planets, all with a cheery confidence in the theory of evolution.
But despite coming up dry so far in our immediate spatial neighborhood (Grinspoon thinks we're spending too much time perusing Mars), like Sagan, he believes it's a near mathematical certainty that civilization exists elsewhere in the big, beautiful universe we live in.
It's fascinating as pure information and made positively delightful by Grinspoon's willingness to be playful. As a fan of both literature (the fancy-pants kind and science fiction) he peppers the book with pithy quotes from Whitman, the rock band U2, Madonna, Bob Dylan, SF master Theodore Sturgeon and others.
His writing is rife with a kind of uppity humor. He's like a teenager who's just decided he wants to be an astrobiologist, thrilled and humbled but still full of attitude.
Examples:
"Who are we to say that our Earth is such a special place? Like parents certain that their baby is the cutest ever born, of course we think our planet is the chosen one."
In describing Occam's Razor, the principle that simple explanations are usually closer to the truth than elaborate theories that require "hidden mechanisms," he writes, "the razor is a tool we use to cut the crap from theories that seem too contrived to describe the apparent simplicity of nature."
And: "For my generation, the planets have, one by one, gradually been transformed from unknown arenas for speculation and fiction to places we have visited, photographed, scratched and sniffed."
I have a feeling that many readers will find the later chapters the most entertaining. That's where he pores over the science of aliens — the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI — and the goofier, X-Files-type UFO conspiracies. It's no less richly rendered than the early chapters, but I kept wanting him to get back to his planetarium riff.
Even here, however, he offers valuable observations on the phenomena: "The most extreme UFO believers and debunkers are caught in a feedback loop in which each side validates the other's existence. Overzealous efforts to discredit UFO reports help to reinforce the wide perception of scientific skepticism as intolerant and narrow-minded. Believers accuse debunkers of being in on a conspiracy, which leads to more hysterical debunking, and so on," he writes.
That's sensible analysis, and Grinspoon leaves his readers with some equally sensible — even a tad sobering — thoughts on the whole question of alien intelligence.
If he met an ET, he writes, his first question would be, "How did you learn to live with yourselves? How do you survive the transition to being a global, technical species? Do you have a spare manual?"
Oh, man. It makes you wish some benevolent, super-intelligent aliens would come on down and tell us how it's done. (The Overlords from Arthur C. Clarke's 1953 classic, "Childhood's End," come to mind.)
"Lonely Planets" is one of the most fun books I've ever read on a "science fictional" topic, including all my old science fiction favorites. If you have a stargazing spouse or friend, or a wide-eyed 15-year-old in the house, consider wrapping this one up for the holiday season.
Source: Daily Camera
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11-23-2003 03:02 AM
