In 1974 a message was beamed towards the stars by the giant Arecibo
telescope in Puerto Rico, a brief blast of radio waves designed to alert
extraterrestrial civilisations to our existence. Of course, we don't
know if such civilisations really exist. For the past six decades a
small cadre of researchers have been on a quest to find out, as part of
SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. So far, SETI has
found no evidence of extraterrestrial life, but with more than a hundred
billion stars in our Galaxy alone to search, the odds of quick success
are stacked against us.
The silence from the stars is prompting some researchers to transmit
more messages into space, in an effort to provoke a response from any
civilisations out there that might otherwise be staying quiet. However,
the act of transmitting raises troubling questions about the process of
contact.
In The Contact Paradox, author Keith Cooper looks at how far SETI has
come since its modest beginnings, and where it is going, by speaking to
the leading names in the field and beyond. SETI forces us to confront
our nature in a way that we seldom have before - where did we come from,
where are we going, and who are we in the cosmic context of things? This
book considers the assumptions that we make in our search for
extraterrestrial life, and explores how those assumptions can teach us
about ourselves.
