The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), by Paul Davies

Astronomers have been sweeping the sky with radio telescopes since 1960, listening for signals from alien civilizations. In his provocative study The Eerie Silence, astrobiologist Paul Davies asks probing questions about the preconceptions behind SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence): Why would we assume aliens communicate with radio? Could aliens be entirely unlike us? Might the existence of life be a wild card rather than a rule? Despite his skepticism, Davies believes that SETI "remains a grand, uplifting enterprise" even though the project represents one of the greatest long shots in human history. The best to be said, he concludes, "is that no totally convincing argument has been given for why alien civilizations cannot exist."