Unit 3 - The Quest For Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Are we humans alone in the universe? Or is there intelligent life on other planets? These questions are not new. What is new, however, is the scientific attempt to discover whether or not other planets beyond our own have given birth to advanced civilizations. In the following article, the author describes the scientific means now available for investigating this possibility and discusses how probable it is that we are not alone in the universe.
THE QUEST FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE
Carl Sagan
Through all of our history we have pondered the stars and mused whether humanity is unique or if, somewhere else in the dark of the night sky, there are other beings who contemplate and wonder as we do, fellow thinkers in the cosmos. Such beings might view themselves and the universe differently. Somewhere else there might be very exotic biologies and technologies and societies. In a cosmic setting vast and old beyond ordinary human understanding, we are a little lonely; and we ponder the ultimate significance, if any, of our tiny but exquisite blue planet.
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence is the search for a generally acceptable cosmic context for the human species. In the deepest sense, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is a search for ourselves.
In the last few years -- in one-millionth the lifetime of our species on this planet -- we have achieved an extraordinary technological capability which enables us to seek out unimaginably distant civilizations even if they are no more advanced than we. That capability is called radio astronomy and involves single radio telescopes, collections or arrays of radio telescopes, sensitive radio detectors, advanced computers for processing received data, and the imagination and skill of dedicated scientists. Radio astronomy has in the last decade opened a new window on the physical universe. It may also, if we are wise enough to make the effort, cast a profound light on the biological universe.
Some scientists working on the question of extraterrestrial intelligence, myself among them, have attempted to estimate the number of advanced technical civilizations -- defined operationally as societies capable of radio astronomy -- in the Milky Way Galaxy. Such estimates are little better than guesses. They require assigning numerical values to quantities such as the numbers and ages of stars; the abundance of planetary systems and the likelihood of the origin of life, which we know less well; and the probability of the evolution of intelligent life and the lifetime of technical civilizations, about which we know very little indeed.
When we do the arithmetic, the sorts of numbers we come up with are, characteristically, around a million technical civilizations. A million civilizations is a breathtakingly large number, and it is exhilarating to imagine the diversity, lifestyles and commerce of those million worlds. But the Milky Way Galaxy contains some 250 billion stars, and even with a million civilizations, less than one star in 200,000 would have a planet inhabited by an advanced civilization. Since we have little idea which stars are likely candidates, we will have to examine a very large number of them. Such considerations suggest that the quest for extraterrestrial intelligence may require a significant effort.
Despite claims about ancient astronauts and unidentified flying objects, there is no firm evidence for past visitation of the Earth by other civilizations. We are restricted to remote signaling and, of the long-distance techniques available to our technology, radio is by far the best. Radio telescopes are relatively inexpensive; radio signals travel at the speed of light, faster than which nothing can go; and the use of radio for communication is not a short-sighted or anthropocentric activity. Radio represents a large part of the electromagnetic spectrum and any technical civilization anywhere in the Galaxy will have discovered radio early -- just as in the last few centuries we have explored the entire electromagnetic spectrum from short gamma rays to very long radio waves. Advanced civilizations might very well use some other means of communication with their peers. But if they wish to communicate with backward or emerging civilizations, there are only a few obvious methods, the chief of which is radio.
The first serious attempt to listen for possible radio signals from other civilizations was carried out at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Greenbank, West Virginia, in 1959 and 1960. It was organized by Frank Drake, now at Cornel University, and was called Project Ozma, after the princess of the Land of Oz, a place very exotic, very distant and very difficult to reach. Drake examined two nearby stars for a few weeks with negative results. Positive results would have been astonishing because as we have seen, even rather optimistic estimates of the number of technical civilizations in the Galaxy imply that several hundred thousand stars must be examined in order to achieve success by random stellar selection.
Since Project Ozma, there have been six or eight other such programs, all at a rather modest level, in the United States, Canada and the Soviet Union. All results have been negative. The total number of individual stars examined to date in this way is less than a thousand. We have performed something like one tenth of one percent of the required effort.
However, there are signs that much more serious efforts may be mustered in the reasonably near future. Besides, hand in hand with the recent spectacular advances in radio technology, there has been a dramatic increase in the scientific and public respectability of the entire subject of extraterrestrial life. A clear sign of the new attitude is the Viking missions to Mars, which are to a significant extent dedicated to the search for life on another planet.
But along with the burgeoning dedication to a serious search, a slightly negative note has emerged which is nevertheless very interesting. A few scientists have lately asked a curious question: If extraterrestrial intelligence is abundant, why have we not already seen its manifestations? Skeptics also ask why there is no clear evidence of extraterrestrial visits to Earth. We have already launched slow and modest interstellar spacecraft. A society more advance than ours should be able to ply the spaces between the stars conveniently if not effortlessly. Over millions of years such societies should have established colonies, which might themselves launch interstellar expeditions. Why are they not here? The temptation is to deduce that there are at most a few advanced extraterrestrial civilizations -- either because statistically we are one of the first technical civilizations to have emerged or because it is the fate of all such civilizations to destroy themselves before they are much further along than we.
It seems to me that such despair is quite premature. All such arguments depend on our correctly surmising the intentions of beings far more advanced than ourselves, and when examined more closely I think these arguments reveal a range of interesting human conceits. Why do we expect that it will be easy to recognize the manifestations of very advanced civilizations? Is our situation not closer to that of members of an isolated society in the Amazon basin, say, who lack the tools to detect the powerful international radio and television traffic that is all around them? Also, there is a wide range of incompletely understood phenomena in astronomy. Might the modulation of pulsars or the energy source of quasars, for example, have a technological origin? Or perhaps there is a galactic ethic of noninterference with backward or emerging civilizations. Perhaps there is a waiting time before contact is considered appropriate, so as to give us a fair opportunity to destroy ourselves first, if we are so inclined. Perhaps all societies significantly more advanced than our own have achieved an effective personal immortality and lose the motivation for interstellar gallivanting, which may, for all we know, be a typical urge only of adolescent civilizations. Perhaps mature civilizations do not wish to pollute the cosmos. There is a very long list of such "perhapses," few of which we are in a position to evaluate with any degree of assurance.
The question of extraterrestrial civilizations seems to me entirely open. Personally, I think it far more difficult to understand a universe in which we are the only technological civilization, or one of a very few, than to conceive of a cosmos brining over with intelligent life. Many aspects of the problem are, fortunately, amenable to experimental verification. We can search for planets of other stars, seek simple forms of life on such nearby planets as Mars, and perform more extensive laboratory studies on the chemistry of the origin of life. We can investigate more deeply the evolution of organisms and societies. The problem cries out for a long-term, open-minded, systematic search, with nature as the only arbitor of what is or is not likely.
参考译文——搜寻外星人
我们人类在宇宙中是不是独一无二的？抑或说在别的行星上是否存在具有高度智慧的生命？这些问题都不是新的。什么是新问题呢？比如说，试图利用科学去发现我们的星球以外的其他行星上是否产生了发达的文明世界。在这篇文章中，作者描述了目前可供探索这一可能性的科学方法，还讨论了在多大程度上我们在宇宙中可能不是独一无二。
搜寻外星人
卡尔·萨根
在人类历史的整个进程中，我们始终在思考着星星，沉思、冥想人类是否是独一无二的，在漆黑夜空的某个地方，是否存在着别的像我们一样爱沉思和产生好奇感的生物——宇宙间的、跟我们相同的思考者。这些生物也许对自身以及对宇宙持有不同看法。在别处可能存在着十分奇特的生物、技术和社会。处在这么一种超越人类想像的浩瀚无垠和时代久远的宇宙空间里，我们略感寂寞，我们寻思着我们这颗小小的却又是精致的蔚蓝色行星可能具有的最终含义。
搜寻外星人，就是搜寻可以被广为接受的人类生存的宇宙环境。从根本上说，搜寻外星人就是搜寻人类自己。
在过去的几年里——在本星球人类生活史的百万分之一的时间内——我们掌握了一种非同寻常的技能，它可以使我们找到苍茫宇宙间的文明世界，哪怕他们和我们一样尚处于不发达的状况。这种技能被称为射电天文学。它包括单架射电望远镜，射电望远镜组阵，灵敏的无线电探测器，对收集到的资料进行加工的先进的计算机，以及具有奉献精神的科学家们的想像力和技术。近十年来，射电天文学开辟了一个观察宇宙物质世界的新窗口。倘若我们的聪明才智发挥得当，或许也可以用它揭示出宇宙生物界的许多秘密。
许多从事外星人研究的科学家，包括本人在内，均在努力估算银河系中有多少个先进的技术文明社会——为方便起见，我们给这种文明社会下的定义是：掌握了射电天文学的社会。这类估算无异于猜测。它要求将许多情况用具体的数字表达出来，诸如恒星的数目和年龄；行星系究竟多达多少和生命起源的可能性——这些，我们知之甚少，以及有智慧的生命进化的可能性和技术文明社会有多长的生命期——对此，我们更是近乎一无所知。
计算结果，我们得出的具有典型意义的数字是有大约一百万个技术文明社会。这可是个大得令人咋舌的数目。想像一下这百万个世界的千姿百态、各种生活方式和商业往来，真令人兴奋不已。然而，银河系大约有二千五百亿颗恒星，即便有百万个文明世界，平均每二十万颗恒星中，也仅有一颗不到的恒星，其周围的一颗行星上存在着先进的文明社会。由于不知道哪些星球上存在这种可能性，我们不得不进行大量的观察。这表明，搜寻外星人需要作出巨大的努力。
尽管有人声称见过古代的太空人和来历不明的飞行物体，但并无确切证据证实别的文明世界的来客曾经访问过地球。我们目前只限于远距离信号的使用，而在我们的技术所能掌握的长距离通讯手段中，无线电是最佳的一种。相对说来，射电望远镜并不贵；无线电能以光速发送，其他任何东西都无法做到比它更快；采用无线电作通讯工具不是短视的或以人类为宇宙中心的行为。无线电包括了大部分电磁波谱，所以银河系中任何地方的技术文明社会，该早已发现了无线电技术了——如同我们在近几个世纪中，对包括短的γ射线到长的无线电波在内的整个电磁波谱进行过探测一样。先进的文明世界相互间很可能采用别的方法进行通讯联系。可是，如果他们想和其他落后的或发展中的文明社会联络的话，就只有几种显而易见的办法，而其中为主的就是无线电。
首次正式尝试收听别的文明社会可能发出的无线电讯号，是1959年到1960年间，在西弗吉尼亚州格林班克国家射电天文观察台进行的。这项工作由现在康奈尔大学的弗兰克·德雷克主持，被称作奥兹玛工程。它系用奥兹国——一个富于异国情调、十分遥远、极难抵达的地方——的公主的名字命名的。德雷克用数周时间探测了附近的两颗恒星，未有结果。倘若能有发现，倒是会令人大为震惊，因为，正如我们所知，即使对银河系中的技术文明社会的数目作相当乐观的估计，若要未经选择便能搜寻成功，那非得对数十万颗恒星进行探测不可。
从奥兹玛工程起，已有六个或八个类似的项目在美国、加拿大和苏联进行过，规模均有限。其结果也是一无所获。至今像这样探测过的星球不到一千，相当于需要探测的星球总数的百分之一中的十分之一。
然而，有迹象表明，在不远的将来，人们会作出更大的努力。此外，与无线电技术获得十分可观的进展相一致的是，无论是在科学界还是在社会上，人们对地球外天体中的生命这一整个课题的重要性的认识，有了极大的提高。这种新的态度的明显标志，是"海盗"号火星探测器的发射。这些发射很大程度上是用来搜寻另一颗行星上的生命的。
不过，随着人们倾注越来越多的精力认真进行探索的时候，出现了一种稍带否定意味却又是很有趣的调子。几位科学家近来问了一个奇怪的问题：如果地球外的天体中存在着许多具有高度智慧的生物，那么为何我们迄今尚未能见到足以表明他们存在的证据？怀疑论者还问，为什么没有外星人访问地球的明显证据。我们已经发射了速度不快、规模适度的星际宇宙飞船。一个比我们先进的社会，理应能够即便不是毫不费力地至少也是很方便地在星际间的太空中航行。经过数百万年，这些社会理应已经建立起殖民地，他们自身或许就在进行着星际探索。为何他们却没有到我们这儿来？于是很可能便推断出：地球外的天体中顶多存在着几个发达的文明社会罢了——这样说，或者是因为，统计结果表明，我们就是这第一批出现的技术文明社会之一；或者是因为，所有这类文明社会的共同遭遇是，他们早在发展得远远超过我们之前就自行毁灭了。
在我看来，这种沮丧的看法是很不成熟的。这类论点正确与否，均取决于我们对于远比我们先进的其他生物的意图是否有正确的估计。如果更仔细地审察一番，我觉得这些论点反映出不少人类有趣的自负心情。我们凭什么认为，能证实极其先进的文明社会存在的种种事物是很容易识别的？我们的处境难道不是与那些居住在亚马逊河流域与世隔绝的社会中的人们很相似吗？他们因缺少工具而无法探测出存在于他们四周的强大的国际无线电和电视通讯。同样，在天文学上，也存在许多尚未完全认识清楚的现象。例如，脉冲星的调制功能或类星体的能源，是否有可能是由某种技术造成的？或者，也许存在着一种星系道德规范：不干涉落后的或发展中的文明社会。也许在接触的合适时机到来之前，得有一段等待时间，好让我们有个可以先行自我毁灭的适当机会，如果我们想这么干的话。也许那些远比我们先进的社会，统统都成功地做到让每个成员长生不老，因而对星际的遨游不再感兴趣，而这种兴趣，就我所知，可能恰恰是尚未充分发展的文明社会才具有的一种强烈欲望的反映。也许成熟的文明社会不愿污染宇宙。这类"也许"可以排列成长长的一张单子，其中，我们可以有把握加以评估的却很少。
我以为地球外文明社会的问题，是个完全有待于探讨的问题。在我个人看来，那种认为宇宙间只存在我们这个唯一的技术文明社会，或者我们仅是极少数几个文明社会之一的看法，与将宇宙看成充满有智慧的生命的观点相比，更难以令人接受。幸运的是，这个问题的许多方面可以经过实验来澄清。我们可以搜寻别的恒星的行星，可以寻找像火星这样距离较近的行星上的简单生命，也可以在实验室内对生命起源的化学过程进行广泛研究。我们可以更深入地调查有关生物和社会的进化情况。总之，十分有必要就这个问题开展一项长期的、不带成见的、系统的探索研究。对于什么是可能的和什么是不可能的，唯一的仲裁者是大自然。
参考资料：
1. 大学英语精读第六册 Unit 03_大学教材听力 - 可可英语
2. 大学英语精读(第三版) 第六册:Unit2A The Quest for Extraterrestrial Intelligence(1)_大学教材听力 - 可可英语
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