SOLVING THE MYSTERY OF THE COSMOS

"You ask, 'Is anybody out there?' But a more pressing question is, 'If someone is, how do we explain it all?'" DAN PAGE Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio

IT IS PRESUMPTUOUS TO ASSUME THAT this speck in the universe we inhabit should be the only one with intelligent life on it [SPACE, Feb. 5]. Among the many billions of heavenly bodies, there have to be a large number on which life exists, and many on which beings may have evolved beyond our level. It is conceivable that such beings have had a close look at us and turned away. There may be a message out there in space: "Hey, guys, as you explore other planets to visit or colonize, stay away from one. The dominant species there is vicious, killing one another as well as other species. If you travel there, they will kill you too. That planet is called Earth." FRED WOLFF La Quinta, California Via E-mail

MAN HAS BEEN CAPABLE OF SENDING EXtraterrestrial signals for only a minute fraction of the billions of years our planet has been habitable. Accepting the astronomically remote assumption that a civilization parallel to ours, with the same technology, currently exists and is a mere 1,000 light-years from us, our signals will reach them around A.D. 3000. Will there be anyone left here on Earth to receive the reply? ROBERT REDDEN Warwick, Rhode Island

I AM CONVINCED THAT NO HUMANS EXIST on other planets. God simply could not make the same mistake twice. HENRY FELD Los Angeles

WE HAVE BARELY BEGUN TO DISCOVER life on our own planet, and time is running out. Not even half the plants and animals that inhabit Earth have been discovered and cataloged. Should we be spending billions of dollars trying to find life in space when our own planet's life-forms are disappearing before our eyes? CHRISTOPHER M. HECKSCHER Dover, Delaware

IN HIS ARTICLE, PAUL DAVIES PERPETUates the same unenlightened position that Bertrand Russell and others have taken in suggesting that human life is futile because the cosmos is ultimately doomed. At the risk of sounding like a New Age cliche, I say life is not about its end point; it is about life itself. BRAD KERN Pacific Palisades, California

NO SHORTAGE OF TALENT

SENATOR ALAN SIMPSON HAS PROPOSED legislation that would sharply reduce the number of foreign skilled and professional workers who can enter the U.S. [BUSINESS, Feb. 5]. If computer-company executives hate the Simpson bill out of a genuine fear of a technical-talent shortage, the solution is obvious: raise the salaries of computer professionals. In my 30 years as a physicist working in industrial R. and D., I have never seen a genuine, sustained shortage of engineers or scientists in this country. However, I have seen corporate-financed propaganda campaigns with dire predictions of America's coming shortage of high-tech workers and of the need for some drastic government action to increase the supply. The unspoken aim is to create enough of a surplus so that American engineers and scientists will be forced to settle for modest salaries and benefits. DONALD A. RYAN Salinas, California

YOU CITE THE CASE OF AN ISRAELI ENGIneer who came to the U.S. and founded a company that employs 34 Americans and 30 foreigners here. He claims that without the unrestricted ability to import foreign workers his company wouldn't be here. Absolutely. But some other company would have moved to fill the demand and would have employed 64 Americans. It's a good example of why Simpson's reforms should be passed. TIMOTHY GAWNE Silver Spring, Maryland

PICKENS MAKES HIS PICK

TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT, IT SHOULD be noted that my contributions to Phil Gramm, as outlined by the Center for Public Integrity and reported in Time [CHRONICLES, Jan. 22], were made to Gramm's U.S. Senate campaigns, not his presidential campaign. I am, in fact, Bob Dole's Texas chairman, and in the 1996 presidential race, Dole is my candidate. BOONE PICKENS Dallas

Apple Today and Tomorrow

I WAS SURPRISED TO SEE TIME MAGAzine go to such hyperbolic extremes in its piece about Apple Computer's recent troubles [BUSINESS, Feb. 5]. For a company with $11 billion in annual sales, is a drop of $69 million in one quarter so dramatic? You noted that Apple's market share has gone from 12% to 9%. But what about the fact that the number of computers it sells continues to skyrocket? Finally, a few statements were so out of line that they need correcting. Apple's "community of 15 million people" is actually 22 million, counting computers sold--or larger, if you consider families that share Macs. The comment in the graphic that inexpensive Mac clones are not available but "should arrive this fall" is just bizarre. Inexpensive, highly reviewed Macintosh clones have been on sale for nearly a year now. More than 200,000 have been sold. As long as there are discerning, creative, smart people, the Macintosh will thrive. Apple has no future, eh? We'll see. DAVID POGUE, Columnist Macworld San Francisco Via E-mail

CORRECTION

OUR STORY "THERE IS NO SAFE SPEED," ON the rise of methamphetamine use [CRIME, Jan. 8], included an erroneous reference to "huge shipments of methamphetamine originating in Mississippi and Tennessee." Those two states were not the point of origin for large shipments of such drugs.