The Zoologist’s Guide To The Galaxy By Arik Kershenbaum — Review

The ultimate guide for how to create (if you’re a scifi writer) or identify (if you’re a scientist) a space alien using the fundamental scientific principles that living beings on Earth rely upon for life

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The quest to find life on another planet (or moon) has consumed mankind for several millennia at least. This quest even impacted my early career development: as an undergraduate pursuing my bachelor’s degree in microbiology, I spent two years in a research lab whose main objective was to find and identify extraterrestrial life in the universe. The lab’s PI (Principal Investigator, or more to the point, “the boss”) and the other team members spent a lot of time asking — and trying to answer — a lot of basic questions: will extraterrestrial life be microscopic, perhaps resembling bacteria or fungi on Earth, or will they look really weird? if they have a strange appearance, how will we know we’ve found alien life? how will we know if they’re alive? what might they look like? how might they move? communicate?

The answers to these questions and more can be found in an easy to read, funny, intelligent and well-researched book, The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy: What Animals on Earth Reveal about Aliens – and Ourselves (Viking Press, 2020: Amazon US / Amazon UK). Written by zoologist, Arik Kershenbaum, a Lecturer at Girton College at the University of Cambridge, this book starts from the assumption that the same laws of physics discovered on Earth apply everywhere in the universe. Just as for physics, there are universal laws of biology. Just as gravity exists everywhere in the Universe, evolution by natural selection also exists everywhere in the Universe, regardless of the method of reproduction. Thus, just as physicists can predict how gravity works on Venus, this fascinating book argues we can do the same with evolutionary histories.

Although we don’t know the specific details of what alien life forms will look or be like, we can make reasonable predictions for how alien life might move, communicate, and socialize in the environments that we imagine existing on other worlds. In this educational book, Professor Kershenbaum explores the range of possible and impossible alien beings as he persuasively argues that “we have enough of a diversity of adaptations here on Earth to give us at least potential mechanisms that seem appropriate solutions even on worlds almost unimaginably different from ours.”

Inspired by Earth-bound fishes that use electrical impulses to hunt, to find mates and to communicate their social status, we can imagine other planets where electrical impulses could be the main form of communication. Or, inspired by Enceladus, one of Saturn’s most intriguing moons that may contain a vast ocean in its interior, we can imagine that the creatures found there may resemble some of Earth’s squids that rely on astounding displays of colors to communicate complex ideas.

Regardless of how far-fetched our ideas about potential alien life seem, the questions that scientists ask stem from a deep knowledge of the basic biological principles shared by all living beings on Earth: how life itself evolved, the basic biochemistry required to live, and the essential physical and environmental conditions necessary for life.

Professor Kershenbaum uses humor to make some of his points accessible to nonspecialist readers. For example, he uses Winnie the Pooh, Piglet and Eeyore to explain the flexibility in languages that create infinite meanings using a finite group of words. As an expert in the complexity of communication, Professor Kershenbaum’s chapters on the development and functioning of extraterrestrial communication are particularly enlightening and educational. For example, he thinks an alien civilization will probably rely on vocal communication, rather than, say, communication of complex ideas using scents.

Perhaps most interesting is how the potential discovery of intelligent alien life might affect us. This inspires Professor Kershenbaum to propose his most provocative idea of all: if aliens are found to be as intelligent as humans, might we consider them to actually be human? (Personally, I think “sentient being” or “nation” or maybe even “people” are better designations, since the term “human” corresponds to a specific species, Homo sapiens.)

Hmm. There’s a lot to think about in this intriguing book.

If you love the science of science fiction, this accessible book is absolutely required reading. If you are a student, a specialist in another scientific discipline, or a nonspecialist who simply wishes to better understand the singular importance of natural selection in explaining the astounding array of animal diversity on Earth, this is your book.

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