Here Be Dragons: The Scientific Quest for Extraterrestrial Life [Paperback]

The book isn't about dragons. It's about the scientific search for extraterrestrial life. The title's taken from a phrase used by old cartographers to indicate unexplored regions of the earth. The play on words, obviously, is that the search for extraterrestrial life takes us into uncharted territory.

"Here be dragons" is a little like "Rare earth," (Ward, Brownlee, Copernicus press, 2000) with a different slant, and a different opinion held by the authors. While Ward and Brownlee are of the opinion that intelligent life is extremely rare in the universe, Koerner and LeVay tend toward the opinion that "...the resulting pressures [of evolution] may commonly foster a trend toward complexification and the ability to react and learn." In line with the hopes of SETI, Koerner and LeVay are of the opinion that "intelligence and technology is common in the galaxy." They find the Fermi Paradox (if intelligence were common in the galaxy, where are the extraterrestrials) "poorly conceived," though they admit their views may be grounded in faith as much as in reason.

The book's flow is both logical and predictable. It begins by describing the theories of the origin of life on earth, including hyperthermophiles and life at the extreme, near mid-ocean vents and hot springs. There's a brief review of Stanley Miller's experiment in the 50's, and how he synthesized many important organic compounds by simulating what he thought, at the time, was a realistic approximation of earth's early atmosphere. But our understanding of the early atmosphere has changed since then, and it looks like the experiment Miller performed doesn't match atmospheric conditions, as we understand them today. This has led scientists to look at other possibilities for the origin of life. For example, organic compounds have been found in space, so there is some speculation that the initial ingredients for life might have been extraterrestrial. Also, recent evidence suggests that our earliest common ancestors were hyperthermophiles, so deep-sea vents may be where life first arose.

Recent discoveries of the extreme conditions in which life exists on earth has led to new speculation about its possible existence on other planets. Mars, for example, might harbor life today, deep under ground (as it is found on earth). During a warmer and wetter past, Mars might even have supported life on its surface.

Throughout the book, the authors act as scientific investigative reporters. They use the book to teach, but also to give a representative view of what different scientists and researchers in various fields are doing. Ordinarily, I'd prefer to see authors be a little more forceful in presenting an idea or opinion, and then working to defend it. But the situation with Koerner and LeVay is different. Exobiology, unlike other branches of science, is one in which the principal subject of research has not been shown to exist. The field is so new that speculation and widely divergent opinions abound. In view of this state of flux, I think it's particularly valuable for their book to sample the broader spectrum of ideas.

After describing the conditions under which life arose on earth, and how it might exist on other planets, the authors proceed to describe the direction of evolution. The point of this discussion is whether evolution has any tendency toward greater levels of complexity, and specifically whether it drives toward the evolution of beings intelligent enough to build a radio transmitter. They sample the opinions of three scientists: Simon Conway Morris, Stephen Jay Gould, and Stuart Kauffman. While these scientists share common ground, they also draw different conclusions and place emphasis in different ways. Personally, I think Stephen Jay Gould comes closest to the truth. It seems obvious to me that the chances of finding intelligence on other planets (where "intelligence" means being able to design and build a system that can communicate with earth) is about as likely as finding a woodpecker (an example used in the book) or an elephant. Humans - in spite of the inflated opinion we have of ourselves - are not the end product of evolution. Our species represents a single point in a morphological phase space of nearly infinite expanse. While I suspect there are strange attractors in this space, it seems less than obvious to me that intelligence (of the sort possessed by humans) is so close to one of these strange attractors as to ensure its evolution during the lifetime of a given planet.

The authors have a pretty interesting chapter on SETI, as well as one about science and the religion of UFOs. They end the book with some exotic extrapolations and speculation of life on other planets, complete with philosophical discussions about cosmology, the anthropic principle, many worlds, multiple universes, and a whole bunch of other subjects that are as easily tossed about by novices and experts, alike.

The book is sparsely illustrated, with an ample index and extensive list of additional reading material. It's well written, easy to read, and entertaining. It's pure speculation (of course) about what we shall find of extraterrestrial life. The real scientific value is in its descriptions of the origin of life on earth, aspects of evolution, and the way it sets the mind to wondering.

As you can see, there's an awful lot of hopping around, making the book more like an anthology of magazine articles than an integrated whole. Still, one has to admire the authors for even attempting to cover all the bases on the subject and not just focusing on, say, SETI, as many similar books do.

Given that, the book is interesting and well-written, bringing up a lot of good topics. Chapters One and Six, in particular, provided a worthwhile counterpoint to the book Rare Earth, which I also read recently. Highly recommended for those interested in the subject.

Koerner and LeVay achieve this engaging readability by presenting contrasting viewpoints from state of the art scientists, often in disagreement. Thus we have paleontologists Stephen Jay Gould and Simon Conway Morris disagreeing on how big a factor chance is in evolution, and how that might affect the prospects for the development of extraterrestrial intelligence. Frank Drake and the late Carl Sagan, who are optimistic about the possibility of contacting ETI, are paired off against people like Jared Diamond, Ben Zuckerman, Ernst Mayr, and Martin Ryle, who are not.

Other books about science try to be interesting by presenting the personalities of science, but what they miss is the conflicts. Koerner and LeVay do not. They even begin the book with a visit to the Museum of Creation and Earth History in Santee, California with its Six Days of Creation exhibits (the Darwinian fish on their vehicle hopefully not noticed). They immediately contrast this with a visit to the nearby NASA Specialized Center of Research and Training in Exobiology at La Jolla. Additionally, they sprinkle the narrative with some interesting, sometimes irreverent, observations. For example on pages 162-163 they toss in a witty jab at Stephen Gould, a brilliant man who sometimes takes himself a little too seriously. At issue is the famous (and beloved) Drake equation. The authors write: "‛It's not an equation,' Stephen Gould tells us baldly, adding his trademark chuckle to let us know that he has finally put the thing out of its misery." At another point they tell us that Frank Drake's license plate reads, "N EQLS L," which is Drake's emphatic way of asserting his belief that we are not alone.

Truthfully, though, some of this was a little over my head, in particular the material about planet-finding techniques, including the photometric method, the radial-velocity method and interferometry. I don't think that's a shortcoming of the book, but rather a shortcoming on my part. However it didn't help that the color plates are misnumbered. (Perhaps in the paperback edition that is fixed.) Also difficult, but interesting, was the material about Stuart Kauffman's "autocatalytic sets" of replicating molecules as precursors of RNA and DNA.

I want to say one thing about the anthropic principle addressed in Chapter 9. We have a sampling of one. A sampling of one is better than no sampling at all. In fact the difference between no sampling at all and one sampling is greater than the difference between samplings one and two, and two and three...etc. It means something, believe it. We're here. That implies that the universe had to be a certain way, which excludes a whole bunch of presumably possible universes. But if the universe were different perhaps some other creatures would be (t)here rhapsodizing over just how miraculous all their coincidences are. To get all thrilled about how everything in the universe had to be exactly so otherwise we wouldn't have arrived is like getting all thrilled at bridge because you were dealt exactly the cards you were dealt since the odds against getting exactly those thirteen individual cards are astronomical.

I also like the tone of "Here Be Dragons" (from the cartographers of old), which is midway between dead earnestness and TGIF casual. The prose is lively and witty and very readable while being informative in an exciting way. I suspect a lot of hard work went into making this a book that the general public could get a lot out of. I know I did.