Colin McEnroe Show: Searching For Life In The 'Eerie Silence'
The universe is old. It's also really big. Is it possible we're not alone?
Published: May 27, 2010
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Martha Gilmore, earth and environmental sciences professor at Wesleyan University
Photo:Chion Wolf
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Colin McEnroe Show: Searching For Life Amidst The 'Eerie Silence'
Wittgenstein said if a lion could speak we would not understand it. A lion shares a lot of our DNA and even has a few experiences in common with us. Breathes the same air. Sees the same sky. We both know what a thunderstorm is like.
An extra-terrestrial life form probably won't even contain DNA and RNA much less any kind of genetic structure comparable to ours. It will be from a different part of the galaxy. So when we think about getting any kind of a signal from them, we're talking about maybe a pulse of some kind, as opposed to ordering takeout.
But as our guest, physicist and astrobiologist Paul Davies, will tell you today, even thinking about the idea of life elsewhere in the cosmos requires that we fathom the nature of life here.
You can join the conversation. Leave your comments below, e-mail colin@wnpr.org or Tweet us @wnprcolin.
**Today's episode was produced with help from Jonathan McNicol.**
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I'd like to feel that there are sort of warm and fuzzy creatures out there who have some empathy with us. But I do fear that the really smartest entities in the universe are going to be something seriously alien by human standards.
-Paul Davies
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