Planetary Dreams

Title: Planetary Dreams – The Quest to Discover Life Beyond Earth

Author: Robert Shapiro

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 1999 (First)

ISBN: 978-0-471-17936-8

Pages: 273

Life is the most wonderful phenomenon mankind has stumbled upon so far, through the entire length of its existence. Atheists and believers alike stand in awe at the marvel, arguing among themselves on how this miracle originated. And we, or some of us, are much too concerned about super intelligent beings sending messengers in the form of UFOs or flying saucers to tinker with mankind. Life, even though taken for granted on our dear earth, has been a question of deep concern to societies from time immemorial. They dreamed about grand vistas and intelligent beings on the planets of the solar system, including the moon which was considered a planet till Galilean times. Colourful but fanciful accounts were made about the life forms existing on these worlds and for a time, there were arguments among the scientific community itself regarding the presence of sentient beings in Mars. Manned exploration to the Moon and unmanned ones to Mars has finally set at rest speculations about the habitability of these worlds, which were found to be stone dead. Robert Shapiro, who is an expert in DNA research and a professor of chemistry at New York University, brings out various scenarios in which life may be encountered in the solar system and speculates about the multitudinous forms they may assume. The readers may however be warned that the author’s remarks and suggestions sometimes veer uncomfortably towards pseudo-science which may mislead beginners, or unsuspecting readers.

Many of the contents of the book may not be admissible as hard scientific fact. Many arguments fall short of the rigor required in convincing the public. Moreover, the witnesses listed by the author are not altogether fit to perform the role they are asked to fulfill. We see Al Gore whose opinion is masqueraded as scientific evidence! Then again comes a patent attorney in Germany who conducts biochemical experiments in his free time, contributing to the evidence pool. To add to the chaos, opinions of noted scientists are given when the given sentiment does not relate to their chosen fields of work. Shapiro quotes Lord Kelvin, one of the most prominent physicists of the 19^th century to assert that “overwhelmingly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie all around us” (p161). What the author does not tell is that Lord Kelvin is considered to be a poor judge of events, even in his specialized field of study. He is remembered for his pompous and ridiculous remarks around the 1890s that all concepts in physics would be understood in a few years of time and physics would be dead by the new century! That was when revolutionary concepts like quantum mechanics and relativity were not even thought of. Whatever may be the author’s true intention, the book appears to be a clever device to plant in the reader’s mind the illogical principle that life originated as a result of intelligent design. Time and again, Shapiro glorifies design, but observing a tactical economy of words. He lets a sentence drop here, a hint there and a clue over there, all pointing to the same destination – intelligent design. This greatly eats away at the relevance and desirability of the work.

The book presents a ‘Life Principle’ which predicts that life will sprout everywhere the right ingredients are present. The final form may differ from what we get to know on Earth. Silicon-based and quite extraordinary beings are possible. In a survey of probable locations in the solar system, Shapiro asserts that intelligent life may not be viable anywhere on the solar planets other than the Earth. Mars, Europa (Jupiter’s satellite) and Titan (Saturn’s satellite) are the best candidates for the time being. Mars was considered to be the habitat of intelligent beings till only a hundred years ago, when the ‘stretch marks’ on its surface was confused with irrigation canals familiar to us. However, the Viking missions and the Pathfinder mission put paid to our hopes of finding a living there. But the author doesn’t let go of it easily. He argues that the automated probes chose a landing site which is perfectly calm, level and not likely to be interrupted by anything, whether organic or inorganic, such as large boulders. This precaution defeats the very purpose of finding life there, as any area present with life forms may not offer ideal conditions for a supposed ‘vehicle parking lot’. Ever partial to controversy, he further goes on to declare that some of the Viking experiments designed to detect traces of life turned up positive results. The author’s departures from established scientific procedure are tiresome and confusing for the general reader who may think that ‘is’ science.

The book must be credited for coming up with an idea of representing the whole of the known world in a scaled model, which he calls Cosmic Museum, that is of course imaginary but made as a proposal for the government to spend money on. The concept of scaling up or down the artifacts – depending on whether it is a bacterium or a galaxy – is really a remarkable exercise not seen in many other books of this genre.

When all is said and done, we must accept that the book failed to deliver on its promises. The subtitle of the volume claims to describe the ‘quest to discover life beyond Earth’, but the subject matter don’t adhere faithfully to the spirit. True, the details of the quest is briefly outlined in about 40 – 50 pages, but most of the time, Shapiro dabbles in quasi-scientific, quasi-religious blabber. He seriously considers arguments of creationists and flying saucer observers so as to stoop to answer their folly questions! Moreover, Shapiro further says, “the three-way debate between advocates of creation, luck and cosmic evolution has been going on for a long time, and will not be resolved unless we can collect some new evidence” (p251).

Books of the popular science genre are generally riddled with measurements of distance represented in metric system and in miles, because most of the books are printed in the U.S. Many of the authors are based there and presumably, most of the readers too. Though almost all of the modern nations have already migrated to metric system including the UK, where the imperial system originated, the U.S still steadfastly latch on to the imperial units causing irritating double unit entries in books like ‘the speed of light in vacuum is 186000 miles per second or 300000 kilometer per second.’ But Shapiro, an American himself, deviates from this practice and follows a welcome tradition of using metric units alone, because he rightly felt that ‘continual insertion of equivalents in terms of miles and inches would clutter the text’. As the number of international readers grows, we may hope to see more such ventures in future.

A few colour plates are included to add visual depth to the arguments presented in the text. However, these appear to be forced, and lacks any attractiveness. Even the natural curiosity one experiences while gazing on pictures of outer space and distant planets fails to arise with Shapiro’s collection of pictures. Readers who are really interested to read about extra-terrestrial life may do well by reading 'Life As We Do Not Eat It' by Peter Ward, reviewed earlier in this blog.

The book is not recommended as strong elements of pseudoscience abound in the work.

Rating: 2 Star