Reinventing SETI: Why Our Alien-Hunting Playbook Needs an Upgrade
Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from Reinventing SETI: New Directions in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, published by Oxford University Press in August 2025. John Gertz is the president and CEO of Zorro Productions, Inc., and a former chairman of the board of the SETI Institute. In his book, Gertz argues that humanity should rethink the search for intelligent life by rejecting outdated paradigms like the Drake Equation, the Fermi Paradox, and the idea of actively broadca