The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence

There are probably many others like me, who are utterly skeptical about the possiblity of encountering intelligent alien life forms, but deep down wish we would live to see the day...

Author Davies resets the business of seeking alien life forms on a foundation of sound science. He proposes that the "alien" life form we are most likely to discover is at the bottom of the ocean, or deep inside the earth. The odds of contacting intelligent life through projects such as SETI are so remote, why not look for life forms on this planet that may be traveling along unique evolutionary paths.

As much as I was inspired by Carl Sagan's Cosmos, I am persuaded that science has not exhausted the search for the origins, nature and prevalence of life right here in our own backyard.

Given the billions of galaxies in the Universe, I imagine the Universe is teeming with life. So, why HAVEN'T we heard from any of them? This book examines the paradox in simple terms that even lay people can appreciate.

This is a great book. The greatest potentially answerable question 'are we alone in the universe?' is explored from every imaginable perspective and with its possible ramifications. I don't think any one explains science to non-scientist better than Paul Davies does. He excels at giving both sides of an argument to a dilemma and lets the reader make the informed decision.

The book doesn't just look at radio astronomy but considers all the other evidence or lack of evidence for what it takes for other intelligence to be elsewhere in the universe. For example, the lack of evidence for non-DNA based life on earth or other planets in our solar system implies that life might not be as easily created as some might state. No systematic harnessing of black hole energy through out parts of the galaxy implies we just might be alone.

The narrator is the same one who read "The Singularity is Near" by Ray Kurzweil. That is good since the themes between the books overlap so much and my mind would naturally go back to that book as I was listening to this book. He gives the best refutation to the Fermi Paradox I've seen so far.

This book is much more than what the title implies. He covers everything related to "are we alone?" and fairly provides all relevant arguments to the table. He has his opinions and states them but always realizing that it's just his opinion and there are not necessarily right answers.

Yes. It brought up some interesting points.

Theories of what forms life could take after it evolves intelligence

Adequate, not exceptional.

Not at all. Maybe a discovery channel program.

A decent read. Lots of interesting thinking in the book, however some of the conclusions seem to be limited - not possible to make with the amount of evidence we have.

I was into the third chapter when I realized the many references to temperatures could not be correct. But I'm not going to dream of the need to correct a well known physicist. It then hit me that the values of the temperatures were off by a factor of 10. Mr. George K. Wilson is adding a decimal to each value. It is disconcerting to have to analyze the information while listening.

This book should be narrated by someone else.

Easy listening voice.

At each chapter mark my iPod skipped to the next book in my playlist. I had to go back manually and enter the unheard chapter area by scrolling with the diamond cursor. I tried downloading a second time to see if that would help, but no luck. I'm using 3 audio.

I would recommend the book only to someone who either is absolutely fascinated with the concept of alien intelligence or who simply devours outer-space-related science fiction. I am truly confident this book is the definitive "retail" description of the state-of-the-art search for such intelligence. I can't imagine any more informed author than Paul Davies. It is a virtually encylopedic enumeration of what we've discovered thus far (i.e., nothing much) and of the many possible ways we humans could discover alien beings going forward, whether they are intelligent or not. However, such an enumeration--in my opinion--got to be tedious after the first few chapters. On the positive side, the reader will encounter some interesting new scientific developments and increase his understanding of the gargantuan hurdles scientists face in the detection of alien intelligence.

Make it a little less speculative about all possible technologies that aliens might employ to find us or that we might use to find them. It got to be a catalog of scientific frontier knowledge that conceivably could be exploited like creating monopole magnets, or using nanotechnology to create tiny data-encoded vonNeumann computers which could be distributed around the universe in millions and powered by dark energy, etc. etc.

The narrator was OK. I'm satisfied.

No.

This book was about SETI, the institute named "Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence", which overall needed the clarification this book provides. I have learned much more about SETI than I thought I could.

Davies left no question unanswered, and overall I found it a very informative and enlighening experience listening to this audiobook. Definitely give it a listen!