Oh god. Avi Loeb waxes philosophical, and he sounds like a crackpot theologian rather than a crackpot scientist. He wants to claim that aliens exist because it will make him feel good while simultaneously arguing that his critics disagree with him because they want to unique and special. It’s an amazing load of very special bullshit.
First he tries to persuade his readers that our existence is pointless because the universe is so very large and ancient, making us a tiny inconsequential speck in the immense cosmos. And somehow, thinking that we’re all alone gives us comfort?
We do not know what happened before the Big Bang, so cosmic history could have extended well beyond our experience, making our existence even less significant in the grander scheme of things. Given this perspective, the Copernican realization that Earth is not at the center of the observable Universe pales in comparison to the realization that our cosmic existence is pointless.
With this humbling backdrop hanging over our head, the possibility that we might be the only intelligent species gives us existential comfort. Our pride stems from our intellectual superiority relative to other natural species on Earth. The emergence of large-language-models of artificial intelligence (AI) with more connections than the number of synapses in the human brain, might bring us back to the sober realization that human intelligence is not the pinnacle of creation. If our technological products might be smarter than we are, who is to say that there are no others out there who are even smarter?
As of now, most of my academic colleagues argue that that the notion that we are not alone in the Universe is an “extraordinary claim” that requires “extraordinary evidence”. However, my common sense argues exactly the opposite: it is extraordinary and arrogant for us to assume that we are special.
That’s all nonsense. Speaking for most biologists, I think we generally agree that life is probably common in the universe — it’s just chemistry, after all. Our expectation that that is so has nothing to do with the idea that being alone would make us special, which is just Loeb’s own special brand of twisty illogic.
He doesn’t seem to realize that his critics are not arguing that the idea we are not alone in the universe is an extraordinary claim — we are arguing that his assertion that a transient observation of a rock passing through the solar system, or of tiny metal spherules at the bottom of the ocean, is piss-poor evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial intent. Loeb is making an extraordinary specific claim on the basis of weak evidence, and dragging a sledge through mud is not the kind of work needed to justify it.
Here’s a counter-example. The JWST has found a planet with emission spectra that suggest the existence of chemical products characteristic of life.
It may have detected a molecule called dimethyl sulphide (DMS). On Earth, at least, this is only produced by life.
The researchers stress that the detection on the planet 120 light years away is “not robust” and more data is needed to confirm its presence.
Researchers have also detected methane and CO2 in the planet’s atmosphere.
Detection of these gases could mean the planet, named K2-18b, has a water ocean.
Prof Nikku Madhusudhan, of the University of Cambridge, who led the research, told BBC News that his entire team were ”shocked” when they saw the results.
“On Earth, DMS is only produced by life. The bulk of it in Earth’s atmosphere is emitted from phytoplankton in marine environments,” he said.
But Prof Madhusudhan described the detection of DMS as tentative and said that more data would be needed to confirm its presence. Those results are expected in a year.
Are scientists freaking out an claiming that this can’t be so, that the data must be rejected because we have a prior certainty that alien life cannot possibly exist, we have to be alone in the unverse? No. That’s a really interesting result, cool stuff that ought to be pursued, but we also need to consider other alternative explanations. Madhusudhan is practicing a kind of cautious interpretation of the data that is totally alien to Loeb.
Scientists don’t seem to have the kind of knee-jerk hostility to the premise of extratrerrestrial life that Loeb imagines. Instead, we’re hostile to bad evidence advanced in service of half-assed hypotheses.
But he worked so hard on gathering ‘data,’ how dare anyone criticize him.
Traveling to the Pacific Ocean for two weeks to retrieve millimeter-size spherules that melted off the surface of IM1 and settled on the ocean floor at a depth of 2 kilometers across a ten-kilometer region, and analyzing these spherules by a state-of-the-art mass spectrometer at Harvard University for two months, was hard work that culminated in a 44-pages-long scientific paper. Tweeting superficially about the findings was an easy escape route for all the naysayers who chose to behave unprofessionally and harass our research team for following the scientific method.
In the imagined reality of cosmic loneliness, our cosmic significance is self-declared. We can ignore packages in our backyard by not searching for them or by ridiculing any search made by the true scientists among us. But irrespective of what some of us tweet, an objective observer of IM1 or `Oumuamua would repeat Galileo’s words: “E pur si mouve” (and yet it moves).
No one is claiming that `Oumuamua didn’t move. That was an observable fact. Rather, those superficial tweets he finds objectionable were by people disagreeing with his claim that its movement was intentional and planned by an extraterrestrial intelligence. Rocks move through space all the time. Spaceships, especially spaceships from an extrasolar origin, are considerably more rare, and you need to be prepared to demonstrate why you attach such an extraordinary cause to it.
And there he goes, trying to hide behind the “scientific method.” His whole research program is a collection of slipshod rationalizations for his a priori biases, backed with haphazard observations that don’t actually support his ideas. His version of the ‘scientific method’ is damned sloppy.
But it gives him meaning, he says.
My second important point is that finding interstellar senders would bring a meaning to our meager cosmic existence. In our personal life, finding a partner often gives us meaning because it channels existential sentiments back to us, providing us comfort. And this comfort is better than that afforded by arrogance and loneliness. The sense of pointlessness brought by comprehending the Universe must have resulted from the focus of cosmologists on lifeless entities, like elementary particles or radiation. If we find a partner out there, the cosmos might not be pointless anymore.
That’s a religious argument — just replace “interstellar senders” with “god,” and it’s the ordinary ravings of a thousand clueless preachers who really, really want you to believe. How can you find meaning in your pathetic, lonely existence if you don’t have Jesus, I mean, Aliens?
His logic doesn’t even hold up internally. If humans are but brief, insignificant specks in a gigantic universe, how does finding another tiny speck suddenly bring us cosmic significance? Oh, but it would make Avi Loeb feel better about his speckiness if he could imagine sharing it with another speck.
And yet, the tininess of my speck neither causes me regret nor makes me seek out bigger, more powerful imaginary specks. Funny how that works.
Wasn’t there another infamous Loeb out there that helped inspire a Hitchcock film? This Loeb seems benign by comparison.
Another petty lie from Loeb:
This clown seems to appear every day in my Medium Daily Digest email. Today I had the added bonus of seeing a Deepak Chopra article. What a glorious day this is!
Only pay attention to Loeb if he teams up with someone named Leopold. Otherwise, just ignore him.
Reminds me of something I heard someone said about the existence of Sasquatch: “Bigfoot MUST be real because he’s too cool not to.”
Speaking for myself, I’d LOVE for all my childhood sci-fi daydreams of a galaxy packed to the rim with intelligent life that we could communicate with and even visit. Given the size and age of the universe I’d say that the livelihood of another civilization existing somewhere in the cosmos is almost certain. Sadly, the laws of physics locks even knowledge of their existence into a black box. We’ll likely never know where or what they are.
This is an assertion without proof or data and may be dismissed without proof or data.
He is just plain wrong here.
.1. Our existence isn’t pointless in the least even though the gods don’t exist.
We make up our own purposes, reasons, and goals to exist, to be alive.
Obviously, no two people have exactly the same purposes and reasons to exist.
.2. A few examples.
Some people claim to live for their children, that is they are propagating the species.
Some people want to leave the earth a better place for their and other’s children.
Many people claim to serve the xian gods, although they disagree completely about what those gods want and why.
The oligarchies want to accumulate power and money (which are interchangeable) so they can run the world for their benefit.
Osama bin Laden and the terrorists want to kill lots of people to make a better world for someone somewhere. Purposes aren’t always benign and noble, unfortunately.
Fill in the blank here with your purposes, reasons, and goals.
What Loeb claims is also a deepity. Superficially it seems profound until you think about it for 10 seconds.
As a ‘good’ scientist Loeb would immediately recognize that he must be aware of his biases and constantly be trying to disprove his hypothesis (‘this is evidence of intelligent extra-terrestrial life’) is false. Instead he is using every tool in the book to argue for his hypothesis. This is not science, it is punditry.
It does no such thing.
He is just wrong here.
Whether we are the only intelligent tool users in the universe or not, is mostly irrelevant to our day to day lives.
Some links here from the Infinite thread :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/07/11/infinite-thread-xxviii/comment-page-7/#comment-2194821
About that.
The fascinating (for me anyhow) thing here is the nature of the planet – a Hycean (Hydrogen ocean) planet that’s in-between a “super-Earth” and a mini-Neptune type planet beneath a thick hydrogen atmosphere. A very different type of world (maybe a far more common type of world?) with very likely a very different type(s) of possible life. Also one that seems unlikely to travel anywhere else and very hard to safely visit.
Scientifically fascinating but not exactly what UFO or alien-god seekers (probly mostly?) have in mind.
Doing haphazard sloppy science and then making wild and unsupported claims based on that data is not good science in the least.
He has no idea that those meteorological spherules that he recovered even came from space rock lM1. Dust from micrometeorites makes up about 1% of the deep sea sediments.
Claiming that a two month project is hard work is laughable.
Most research programs take years.
How many years did it take to sequence the human genome or develop mRNA vaccines. It’s more than a decade at the least.
@ 6. raven : I guess the question there – well, one of them, is whose “we” Loeb means.
Also reckon that he means ” existential”” in the sens eof philosophical..
Akira@5 You’re not the only SF geek here who’d be more than happy if someone found actual evidence of alien beings visiting earth!
Loeb isn’t the only one from the UFO circus who claims his critics only disagree with them because they just can’t accept the existence of non human intelligence out there (and visiting). Somehow this “argument” reminds me of the claim that atheists actually know some god exists but just can’t accept the fact because they are to arrogant and hedonistic (or something like that).
UFO-believers, creationists, flat-earthers,… – they all seem to be working from the same script.
At the first quote, my first thought was, “Another fine product of ChatGBT”.
But, the remaining quotes show that he surpassed that low benchmark, to the point where I’m now concerned for his mental status.
As in, dude’s been shifting gears and not bothering with using the clutch.
Oh, Oumuamua didn’t move, the unicorns were towing it. Just as valid a theory as the shit he’s been peddling.
raven, there’s no evidence I’ve saw that even establish that the iron spherules are even meteorological. They could be bacterial in origin or even simply conglomerates of crap suspended in the water. An isotopic analysis might suggest they were meteoric in origin, maybe.
But, it wasn’t even as if he sampled outside of his sample area as a control, he just dredged and wished, then made fine pronouncements of dubious sanity.
Now, can someone kindly get me a wet trout? I want to pay Avi a personal visit and properly thank him for his, erm unflushed contribution to our existence…
Because, I saw superior evidence in the bottom of my toilet this morning and that evidence still remains shit that I flushed away.
It’s even worse than that.
Some of those spherules might have come from the atomic bomb testing we did in the South Pacific.
Some of them contain beryllium, uranium, and lanthanum.
Nuclear bombs use beryllium as a neutron reflector as part of the initiator of the chain reaction. They also use uranium as part of the first stage fission bomb. Lanthanum is a product of the splitting of uranium that produces the energy.
We did a lot of testing in the South Pacific and the area Loeb is dredging is down wind from there.
One of our tests, Castle Bravo, a fusion bomb, was a mishap. It was 3 times more powerful than predicted and one of the largest radiological accidents in history. The fallout made a lot of people downwind sick.
I’d really like to see Loeb rule out atomic bomb testing fallout as an explanation for those beryllium, uranium, lanthanum containing spherules.
Loeb is actually performing a psyop operation on behalf of aliens- the purpose is to ridicule and discredit the idea of alien civilisations across Earth cultures, so no one will suspect what is really going on.
This psyop program has been ongoing since the 1950s and at one time included the recruitment of several B-film directors (they were of course unaware of the real identity of their paymasters).
It was also necessary to terminate individuals that came dangerously close to the truth, such as C. Sagan and R. Feynman.
I believe there are aliens out there, simply as a matter of numbers. I also believe that unless what we think we know about physics is wrong, we will never meet them, and probably never have any evidence that they exist, barring some bizarre cosmic accident.
I do not know whether it is more depressing if we are alone in the universe or if we are not alone, but may as well be.Neither possibility makes me feel special.
Rocks move through space all the time.
Indeed, observing a space rock which did not move would revolutionize science more than any mere alien spacecraft. (Alas, since we – planet/solar system/galaxy/cluster) whirl around in so many different vectors, we’d barely catch a glimpse of any such stone as we whizzed past it.)
Confirming that the chemical they found is DMS would be very interesting. It’s not so easy or usual to get it without reducing conditions, which are indeed much more frequently found in bacteria. Industrially, making it needs a lot of heat and a specific catalyst, not likely to be found on some random planet. But maybe the aliens have industrial capability!
Raven @14, you’re a much better scientist than Loeb is! Though I suppose that Loeb would say that it’s just evidence that the aliens have nuclear capability. He’d say that fallout from space instead of from our own activities is more “probable”.
@16, I think you’re right. We and the aliens are just too far apart to get to each other.
Also, there is no evidence that Galileo really said “Eppur si muove.” (And really, Loeb, did you just use the Galileo Gambit?)
Spicks and specks may break my bones but Loeb’s aliens don’t exist.
“It’s an amazing load of very special bullshit”
No, it’s just ordinary run of the mill bullshit.
For comparison, I’d submit “Disputatio nova contra mulieres, qua probatur eas homines non esse”
Also
some specks are less insignificant than others. Richard, for example.
@ ^ vereverum : Which Richard? Dawkins, Richard I the Lionheart the Angevin King of England? Richard III the possibly maligned last English King to die in battle? Richard Wagner, Richard Franklin, Richad Burton, Richard Byrd, et cetera. Significant or otherwise to who and why?
@19. Steve Morrison : Yes and yes. Yes, that’s apparently an apocryphal legend and yes, I think he did. Remember they laughed at Bozo the clown too .. as another old saying on that goes.
@18. garnetstar : Yes although developing an Industrial society and tech in a planet that’s deep hydrogen atmosphere, then deep ocean then hot high pressure ices seems improbable given lack of access of metals and silicon among other materials.
Technical discussion / scientific paper on this here : https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ab7229#apjlab7229s3 FWIW.
@ raven (various) :
Yes but in fairness you can do “hard work” over almost any span of time including two months -all that’s necessary to fit that criteria is that it be work and hard. Field trips in ardous conditions and projects that are short term but extremely intense,challenging and difficult could well take less than 2 months yet fit the description perfectly. Does Loeb’s one meet those criteria? Dunno. Doubt it. Depending on what was involved, it could’ve been “hard work” and no doubt they put some effort in but still relatively speaking.
It took from 1990 till 2003 to sequence the human genome although planning fort eh eponymous project started in 1984.
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Genome_Project
For mRNA vaccines, the first published paper came in 1989 with the first apprioved vaccine in 2020. See wikibasics here :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRNA_vaccine#History
@20. nomdeplume :
Spicks and specks was a good Aussie music show on TV and Loebs aliens lack sufficient evidence and certianly don’t belong to him! They may well be out there somewher eand it is concievable that he is actually correct but there’s far too little clear and conclusive evidence to demonstrate that they do as of yet. They most probly don’t at leats as he’s postulated them with more likely theories explaining the weak “evidence” presented by Loeb so far.
@22 Yes, was trying to do a sort of play on words with sticks and stones, but failed completely. Not in top form lately…
I have no doubt that there is life, probably abundant life, just in our galaxy alone. But Loeb’s data is about as convincing as the two “alien” bodies in Mexico.
‘If humans are but brief, insignificant specks in a gigantic universe, how does finding another tiny speck suddenly bring us cosmic significance?’
The same can be said of studying spiders!
@ StevoR #22
I was reminded of Richard Speck, who had a thing for nurses.