ABSTRACT
Despite a wealth of science fiction and scientific speculation on the origins of the universe and life itself, professional philosophers have shown little interest in space exploration. Our culture is very much an Earthbound one and provides little imaginative foothold for the exploration of space. Yet we stand on the threshold of space exploration. We may decide to refrain from further explorations and draw to a halt the expansion of our technological culture, or we may begin a project of exploration that will, one day in the far-off future, lead to the stars. For most of us, while space travel is scientific fact, communication with extraterrestrials is science fiction (SF). But the line between the two is not rigid. Why should we, it might be asked, be the only culture in the universe to contemplate exploration? This question leads directly to the subject matter of this book, the investigation of theories and beliefs concerning the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial forms of life and the proposals for making contact with them. The name given to scientific research into the search for extraterrestrial intelligent life is SETI, that is, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. One of the objectives of writing this book is to evaluate the respective claims that have been made about the status of SETI as a serious scientific enterprise and the variety of hypotheses which have emerged during the past three or four decades of SETI research.
