- Email: [email protected]
Intelligence in the Universe
Planet. Space Sci. 1967. Vol. 15, pp. 1095 to 1096. Pergamon Press
Ltd. Printed in NorrhernIreland
BOOK REVIEWS
ROGERA. MACGOWANand FREDERICKI. ORDWAYIII: Intelligence in the Universe. PrenticeHall, New York, 1966. xiii + 402. $13.50. THE AUTHORSmodestly describe their joint endeavor as “a comprehensive and penetrating study” with “profound implications”. The possibility that intelligent organisms and technical civilizations inhabit planets of other stars is one of the most exciting prospects to receive scientific attention during the past few years. The subject is complex and interdisciplinary; many aspects are necessarily speculative. As the co-author of a recent book on the same subject, I am well aware of the difficulties of such a presentation. However, the MacGowan-Ordway book is so uniformly inadequate, both in style and content, that there exists little danger of my criticism-being interpreted as the snip&g of a compet&g author. There is a discussion of the astronomical background, marked bv, the easv, mix of facts. misunderstandings, opinions, fundamental errors and speculazons with the reader never acquiring any clues on how astronomical data are obtained. One gains the impression that when the authors incompletely understand a phenomenon they describe it in awestruck superlatives. Thus, the universe is replete with “unfathomable distances,” “incalculable quantities, ” “amazing phenomena, ” “untold millions of micrometeorites,” “incredibly long times,” and “incomprehensibly large numbers of particles”. This slipshod and tedious style is continued in the discussion of biological topics. Unimaginative and geocentric restrictions are placed on possible extraterrestrial life forms, restrictions based on terrestrial analogy rather than on any chemical or biological insights. The phrase “life as we know it” is in evidence in these pages. “Life as we know it” depends on who the we is, and MacGowan and Ordway do not appear particularly knowledgable; e.g. despite a fashionable discussion of polynucleotides and a presentation of the structural formulae of the 20 common amino acids, nowhere is there a coherent discussion of natural selection, and nowhere is the importance of natural selection for the origin and early evolution of life stressed. After many pages on modern views of the origin of life, this event is baldly called a “miracle”. Occasional fascinating facts are presented, as the news that Brontosaurus was able to regenerate a severed tail. Many readers will find the authors’ views on politicaL social and racial matters objectionable. There are offhand references to the “lower elements of society,” and gratuitous and irrelevant remarks on possible intellectual differences among the races. After mentioning how the “pawns of organized crime” have “gained positions in national legislatures” and suspecting that some “top political leaders” have been “controlled,” the authors opt for a computerized dictatorship, described glowingly in such phrases as “individuals must be restricted,” and “individuals should only be permitted,” and concluding with the sentence, “A significant trend towards increased personal freedom is actually a trend towards anarchy and chaos,” which I take it is paraphrased from the writings of A. Hitler. In line with this Weltunschauung, all endeavors of intelligent beings are said to he divided into four categories: “physical science,” “social science,” “engineering science,” and “operational science (the human operation of engineering devices)“. Thus, as internal evidence within this book also bears out, the authors are unfamiliar with biology, to say nothing of art or philosophy. They feel that their major contribution to exobiology is an emphasis on the possible role of intelligent automata in the future development of our civilization and in the future exploration of space. This book makes me wonder whether automata have not already taken over-in some areas of science writing and editing, for example. In a subject which desperately needs a sense of humor, MacGowan and Ordway have taken themselves with grave and pompous seriousness. This book is a grievous paradigm of poor science writing. CARL SAGAN
JEAN KOVALEVSKY(Editor): Trajectories of Artificial Celestial Bodies as Determined from Observations. Springer, Berlin, 1966. xvi 1-265. DM 59,60. LAST part of the title of this book “. . . as determined from observations” signifies the emphasis of the second IUTAM meeting which was held jointly with COSPAR and the IAU in Paris in April 1965. The publication constitutes a logical continuation of “Dynamics of Satellites”, which incorporated the papers of the first IUTAM meeting in May 1962. THE
1095
Ltd. Printed in NorrhernIreland
BOOK REVIEWS
ROGERA. MACGOWANand FREDERICKI. ORDWAYIII: Intelligence in the Universe. PrenticeHall, New York, 1966. xiii + 402. $13.50. THE AUTHORSmodestly describe their joint endeavor as “a comprehensive and penetrating study” with “profound implications”. The possibility that intelligent organisms and technical civilizations inhabit planets of other stars is one of the most exciting prospects to receive scientific attention during the past few years. The subject is complex and interdisciplinary; many aspects are necessarily speculative. As the co-author of a recent book on the same subject, I am well aware of the difficulties of such a presentation. However, the MacGowan-Ordway book is so uniformly inadequate, both in style and content, that there exists little danger of my criticism-being interpreted as the snip&g of a compet&g author. There is a discussion of the astronomical background, marked bv, the easv, mix of facts. misunderstandings, opinions, fundamental errors and speculazons with the reader never acquiring any clues on how astronomical data are obtained. One gains the impression that when the authors incompletely understand a phenomenon they describe it in awestruck superlatives. Thus, the universe is replete with “unfathomable distances,” “incalculable quantities, ” “amazing phenomena, ” “untold millions of micrometeorites,” “incredibly long times,” and “incomprehensibly large numbers of particles”. This slipshod and tedious style is continued in the discussion of biological topics. Unimaginative and geocentric restrictions are placed on possible extraterrestrial life forms, restrictions based on terrestrial analogy rather than on any chemical or biological insights. The phrase “life as we know it” is in evidence in these pages. “Life as we know it” depends on who the we is, and MacGowan and Ordway do not appear particularly knowledgable; e.g. despite a fashionable discussion of polynucleotides and a presentation of the structural formulae of the 20 common amino acids, nowhere is there a coherent discussion of natural selection, and nowhere is the importance of natural selection for the origin and early evolution of life stressed. After many pages on modern views of the origin of life, this event is baldly called a “miracle”. Occasional fascinating facts are presented, as the news that Brontosaurus was able to regenerate a severed tail. Many readers will find the authors’ views on politicaL social and racial matters objectionable. There are offhand references to the “lower elements of society,” and gratuitous and irrelevant remarks on possible intellectual differences among the races. After mentioning how the “pawns of organized crime” have “gained positions in national legislatures” and suspecting that some “top political leaders” have been “controlled,” the authors opt for a computerized dictatorship, described glowingly in such phrases as “individuals must be restricted,” and “individuals should only be permitted,” and concluding with the sentence, “A significant trend towards increased personal freedom is actually a trend towards anarchy and chaos,” which I take it is paraphrased from the writings of A. Hitler. In line with this Weltunschauung, all endeavors of intelligent beings are said to he divided into four categories: “physical science,” “social science,” “engineering science,” and “operational science (the human operation of engineering devices)“. Thus, as internal evidence within this book also bears out, the authors are unfamiliar with biology, to say nothing of art or philosophy. They feel that their major contribution to exobiology is an emphasis on the possible role of intelligent automata in the future development of our civilization and in the future exploration of space. This book makes me wonder whether automata have not already taken over-in some areas of science writing and editing, for example. In a subject which desperately needs a sense of humor, MacGowan and Ordway have taken themselves with grave and pompous seriousness. This book is a grievous paradigm of poor science writing. CARL SAGAN
JEAN KOVALEVSKY(Editor): Trajectories of Artificial Celestial Bodies as Determined from Observations. Springer, Berlin, 1966. xvi 1-265. DM 59,60. LAST part of the title of this book “. . . as determined from observations” signifies the emphasis of the second IUTAM meeting which was held jointly with COSPAR and the IAU in Paris in April 1965. The publication constitutes a logical continuation of “Dynamics of Satellites”, which incorporated the papers of the first IUTAM meeting in May 1962. THE
1095