Submitted by Claire de Lune on
By Bruce Dorminey
1. Most Americans think life is out there already.
Aside from the 36 percent of Americans who think that “space aliens” have already visited earth, a majority believe that at least some form of life is out there.
Of course, confirming E.T. exists requires a leap beyond mere speculation. But such news might not create the cultural shock that some sociologists would wager.
2. The discovery’s potential effect on contemporary religious paradigms is overstated.
Given that The Vatican’s Mount Graham Observatory in Arizona routinely does extrasolar planet surveys and has even held a conference on exoplanetary biomarkers, it seems that the Roman Catholic Church, at least, is actively thinking about the potentiality for extraterrestrial life.
There’s also been a recent resurgence of both observatory construction and astronomy education in many parts of the Islamic world.
Thus, it’s hard to understand why some astrobiologists fear that detection of either extraterrestrial life or extraterrestrial intelligence would automatically cause turmoil among the world’s current religions. Most religions already accommodate the possibility of offworld life in their theologies.
3. Finding evidence for ancient Mars life might be “déjà vu all over again.”
We’ve been through this before. In early August 1996, while visiting the European Southern Observatory (ESO) heaquarters outside Munich, I happened to switch on CNN and was immediately drawn to breaking news that NASA was about to hold a press conference detailing the putative detection of ancient microbial life on Mars.
How ironic, that the day before I was to interview ESO officials about their Very Large Telescope (VLT)’s forthcoming ability to find other earthlike planets, President Bill Clinton would be on the White House lawn hinting at big astrobiological news.
We now know the evidence for the putative microbes in the Martian meteorite Allan Hills 84001 was equivocal at best.
At the time, I remember being awed but also wondering “Is that all there is?” And “Did the microbes actually seed earth or the other way around?” Yet I don’t recall hyperventilating or anyone either dancing or rioting in the street.
4. If extraterrestrial intelligence is out there, it’s likely to be hundreds if not thousands of light years away.
“…true interstellar communication would necessitate a transgenerational attitude…,” I write in my book, Distant Wanderers. “Signals sent and returned over distances as short as [32.6 light years] would require a round-trip communication transit of at least 65 years…”
With our current limited attention spans, once the news had been hashed and rehashed, the public would arguably revert back to following the next sensational murder trial. Aside from academics, philosophers and some textbook editors, it’s conceivable that a decade after the detection, few would still care.
5. The “Anthropic Principle” may not matter to a generation raised on Reality TV.
Or more specifically, the “strong” version of this cosmological principle which roughly states that in the universe as we know it, intelligent life must be inevitable.
It might still be a lonely universe.
Even though the odds seemed stacked in favor of extraterrestrial life at least somewhere, as long as we don’t detect it, the argument can continue to be played both ways.
It’s only a matter of perception. As anyone who’s ever pulled off an interstate interchange to check into a seemingly empty chain hotel can attest, in the light of day, it can be quite a shock to find out that you were surrounded by fellow travelers. Would you have slept any better knowing you weren’t alone?
To this current self-referential generation — so capable of making its own noise — an empty universe might be just fine.