Who said scientists don’t like to speculate? In 'Aliens: The World’s Leading Scientists on the Search for Extraterrestrial Life,' an anthology edited and introduced by Jim Al-Khalili, they do almost nothing but. The result is fascinating, not least because the book’s contributors utilize the available facts to launch themselves, figuratively, into outer space, where certain planets and/or their moons just may play host to organic life. In other words, the speculation animating “Aliens” ranks as the most responsible kind – that informed by science.
Al-Khalili is an Iraq-born British theoretical physicist whose previous works include “Quantum: A Guide for the Perplexed” and “The House of Wisdom: How Arabic Science Saved Ancient Knowledge and Gave Us the Renaissance.” In shepherding his latest book into existence – it was first published under a slightly different title in the UK last year – he handpicked the members of what he calls “Team Aliens.” Of the group’s 20 men and women, many of whom are renowned in their respective fields (which include astrobiology, astrophysics, biochemistry, cosmology, neuroscience, zoology, and more), he observes, “You will find that each and every one of them offers his or her own unique perspective on the subject.”
Indeed, precisely because the contributors to “Aliens” cannot (yet) come up with more than educated guesses regarding the existence of extraterrestrial life, they differ to a great degree in their approach to the issue, and even in their conclusions. This, perhaps counterintuitively, stands as one of the book’s strongest suits. The main purpose of “Aliens” isn’t to argue for or against the proposition that we are not alone, but to examine the oft-ignored side of a subject that has long served as fodder for outlandish popular entertainment and wacky conspiracy theories. This means discussing the conditions necessary for life, the possibility that such conditions exist on this or that planet, and how we would go about determining as much.
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