A review by wanderaven
Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth by Avi Loeb
4.0
While Loeb's theory is fascinating and exciting, I'm ultimately left somewhat depressed due the clearly visible outcome, what with it being influenced by politics and insular views.
The appearance of 'Oumuamua in autumn of 2017 was, excuse the obvious pun, a blip on my screen. At the time, the prevailing scientific voices quickly buried the early excitement, telling us that this was nothing more than some super odd, incredibly rare, but naturally occurring object.
There's so much understatement in those claims, as Loeb goes into great detail to explain just how incredibly infinitesimal some of these likelihoods are, and then the compounding of those elements in one object.
Early on in my reading of Extraterrestrial (ARC provided by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) I googled the artists' rendering of the object, and stumbled across multiple recently published articles immediately refuting Loeb's hypothesis and allowed myself to read one of them. The ferocity of and patronizing, incredibly dismissive words in that article were so offensive compared to Loeb's sometimes caustic rants in here, against the very community that publishes these articles, that I absolutely understood and accepted his gripes.
No less than Hawking himself encouraged the theoretical possibilities and need to search for extraterrestrial intelligent life, but so many scientists dismiss it so quickly out of hand that they instantly show their biases. I imagine there are scientists out there that - like the hipster-style I'm-more-intelligent-and-above-the-rabble stereotype - dismiss even Hawking, and regular peons such as myself (I could track Loeb's scientific explanations here, which is admirable for a book written for a regular reader, but I'm sure it's elementary to actual astrophysicists) for considering this sort of stuff.
I'm inclined to be on Loeb's side, here, and that shows my own bias (because I'm inclined to be open to these big ideas, and see little fault in at least entertaining them). But even if I weren't, I'd commend his honesty and academic bravery in continuing to step forward to bring his theories and concerns to our attention.
I found it a strange you-can't-have-it-both-ways thinking that Loeb repeatedly and disdainfully dismissed his young students' obsessions with social media and yet also praised them as being the only possible saviors of his theories, as enthusiastic and open-minded scholars who may help revive the SETI program and similar searches. I know that, technically, these are separate things, but surely the access these students have to the wider world and to finding others outside their immediate in-person-communities who share their curiosities and desires to think on larger scales can't help but foster their ultimate inclusion into worldviews like those that Loeb presents.
The appearance of 'Oumuamua in autumn of 2017 was, excuse the obvious pun, a blip on my screen. At the time, the prevailing scientific voices quickly buried the early excitement, telling us that this was nothing more than some super odd, incredibly rare, but naturally occurring object.
There's so much understatement in those claims, as Loeb goes into great detail to explain just how incredibly infinitesimal some of these likelihoods are, and then the compounding of those elements in one object.
Early on in my reading of Extraterrestrial (ARC provided by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) I googled the artists' rendering of the object, and stumbled across multiple recently published articles immediately refuting Loeb's hypothesis and allowed myself to read one of them. The ferocity of and patronizing, incredibly dismissive words in that article were so offensive compared to Loeb's sometimes caustic rants in here, against the very community that publishes these articles, that I absolutely understood and accepted his gripes.
No less than Hawking himself encouraged the theoretical possibilities and need to search for extraterrestrial intelligent life, but so many scientists dismiss it so quickly out of hand that they instantly show their biases. I imagine there are scientists out there that - like the hipster-style I'm-more-intelligent-and-above-the-rabble stereotype - dismiss even Hawking, and regular peons such as myself (I could track Loeb's scientific explanations here, which is admirable for a book written for a regular reader, but I'm sure it's elementary to actual astrophysicists) for considering this sort of stuff.
I'm inclined to be on Loeb's side, here, and that shows my own bias (because I'm inclined to be open to these big ideas, and see little fault in at least entertaining them). But even if I weren't, I'd commend his honesty and academic bravery in continuing to step forward to bring his theories and concerns to our attention.
I found it a strange you-can't-have-it-both-ways thinking that Loeb repeatedly and disdainfully dismissed his young students' obsessions with social media and yet also praised them as being the only possible saviors of his theories, as enthusiastic and open-minded scholars who may help revive the SETI program and similar searches. I know that, technically, these are separate things, but surely the access these students have to the wider world and to finding others outside their immediate in-person-communities who share their curiosities and desires to think on larger scales can't help but foster their ultimate inclusion into worldviews like those that Loeb presents.