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Skeptical Inquirer Editor’s Note THE MAGAZINE FOR SCIENCE AND REASON EDITOR Kendrick Frazier EDITORIAL BOARD James E. Alcock Barry Beyerstein Thomas Casten Martin Gardner Ray Hyman Paul Kurtz Joe Nickell Lee Nisbet Are We Alone? Amardeo Sarma Béla Scheiber A Searching Look at SETI CONSULTING EDITORS Susan J. Blackmore John R. Cole Austin Dacey re we alone in the universe? The question reverberates across the cen- Kenneth L. Feder turies. But the generations alive today are the first to be able to actively C. E. M. Hansel E. C. Krupp seek an answer. The scientific Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Scott O. Lilienfeld (SETI) has been underway since the 1960s and 1970s when the ability David F. Marks Eugenie Scott Ato scan the skies with powerful radiotelescopes and the activities of SETI pioneers such Richard Wiseman as Frank Drake and Carl Sagan began to breed optimism that we might soon have an CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Austin Dacey answer. Peter Schenkel, who once shared that optimism and wrote two books on SETI, Chris Mooney one a novel about first contact that I enjoyed, thinks it’s time for a skeptical reassessment James E. Oberg Robert Sheaffer of SETI, and he provides it in this issue. David E. Thomas I share the popular fascination with the question. It has profound significance for sci- MANAGING EDITOR ence and humanity. Science books I have on SETI fill an entire shelf. I myself first wrote Benjamin Radford ART DIRECTOR about SETI and its possible consequences in “First Contact: The News Event and the Lisa A. Hutter Human Response,” a chapter in the 1976 Prometheus book Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence: PRODUCTION The First Encounter, edited by James L. Christian. I have since become a bit more cir- Christopher Fix cumspect about the possibilities but no less enthusiastic about the question. Paul Loynes EDITORIAL ASSISTANT That’s why I invited three distinguished experts on SETI and the broader new disci- David Park Musella pline of astrobiology to respond to Schenkel’s critique and provide their own brief CARTOONIST appraisals of the status of the search. Astronomer (and CSICOP Fellow) Jill Tarter leads Rob Pudim WEB-PAGE DESIGN the search as director of the Center for SETI Research at the SETI Institute, the pri- Patrick Fitzgerald, Designer vately funded research group in Mountain View, California. NASA planetary scientist Amanda Chesworth David Morrison (also a CSICOP Fellow) has helped define astrobiology and is at the PUBLISHER’S REPRESENTATIVE NASA Astrobiology Institute. Astronomer/writer David Darling’s book Life Everywhere Barry Karr explores astrobiology, and he has also written a lively alphabetical guide on everything CORPORATE COUNSEL to do with life in the universe, The Extraterrestrial Encyclopedia. Brenton N. VerPloeg BUSINESS MANAGER I think these four points of view make for an up-to-date and highly readable reassess- Sandra Lesniak ment of the status of the scientific search for intelligent life elsewhere. FISCAL OFFICER * * * Paul Paulin DEVELOPMENT OFFICER The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) group has for years made Sherry Rook claims of the mind’s abilities to affect the output of a random number generator. In this CHIEF DATA OFFICER issue, York University physicist Stanley Jeffers provides a succinct analysis that casts a Michael Cione considerably different light on these assertions. STAFF Darlene Banks * * * Patricia Beauchamp Cheryl Catania April 30 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of CSICOP at a landmark Matthew Cravatta conference “The New Irrationalisms: Antiscience and Pseudoscience,” organized by Jackie Mohr Denise Riley Paul Kurtz at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Later that same year, 1976, Anthony Santa Lucia the first issue of the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER (initially called The Zetetic) came out. As I John Sullivan Vance Vigrass write, I’m on my way to a celebration of CSICOP’s anniversary and dedication of the Jay Wollin new wing of the Center for Inquiry, headquarters for CSICOP and the Council for PUBLIC RELATIONS Secular Humanism, virtually across the street from the campus where this global effort Nathan Bupp Lauren Becker in the defense of science and reason all started thirty years ago. It has been an exciting EDUCATIONAL DIRECTOR thirty years. I think we have made a difference, and with your continuing involvement Amanda Chesworth and support we will keep doing so in the years and decades ahead. INQUIRY MEDIA PRODUCTIONS Thomas Flynn DIRECTOR OF LIBRARIES Timothy S. Binga

The SKEPTICAL INQUIRER is the official journal of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, an international organization.

4 Volume 30, Issue 3 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER