Taxi from Another Planet
Conversations with Drivers about Life in the Universe
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
Insightful, good-humored essays on the possibilities of alien life and the uses of space exploration, based on an astrobiologist’s everyday conversations with his fellow humans—taxi drivers, to be precise. “This is a joy to read.” —Publishers Weekly
If you’ve ever sat in the back seat of a taxi, you know that cabbies like to talk. Sports or politics, your job or theirs, taxi drivers are fine conversationalists on just about any topic. And when the passenger is astrobiologist Charles Cockell, that topic is usually space and what, if anything, lives out there.
Inspired by conversations with drivers all over the world, Taxi from Another Planet tackles the questions that everyday people have about the cosmos and our place in it. Will we understand aliens? What if there isn’t life out in the universe? Is Mars our Plan B? And why is the government spending tax dollars on space programs anyway? Each essay in this genial collection takes questions like these as a starting point on the way to a range of insightful, even poignant, observations. Cockell delves into debates over the inevitability of life and looks to both human history and scientific knowledge to consider what first contact will be like and what we can expect from spacefaring societies. He also offers a forceful argument for the sympathies between space exploration and environmentalism.
A shrewd and entertaining foray into the most fundamental mysteries, Taxi from Another Planet brings together the wisdom of scientific experts and their fellow citizens of Earth, the better to understand how life might unfold elsewhere.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Conversations with cab drivers lead to discussions about space exploration in this fun outing from astrobiologist Cockell (The Equations of Life). Inspired by a London cabbie who asked him if there are "alien taxi drivers," Cockell uses the narrative device to answer big questions casually. (In this case answering with a look at how many things had to go just right on Earth for the two of them to have wound up in the cab). A driver in Waverly wonders whether space will be "full of tyrannies or free societies," to which Cockell explains that since humans will need to implement institutions to foster survival, it'll depend on what political systems people bring with them. A cabbie en route to Heathrow wonders, "Should we solve problems on Earth before exploring space?" which elicits the answer that it's a good point, but "the science of climate change itself has been greatly enriched by the study of our planetary neighbors." Indeed, Cockell fields questions regarding both space and life on Earth, wonderfully demonstrating how knowledge of the former can significantly enhance understanding of earthbound issues, and he does a great job blending cutting-edge science with philosophical considerations. This is a joy to read.
