Guest Column
‘Defenders’ of Science Can Hurt It Instead
Whether it’s the lab-leak theory of COVID’s origin or the evidence for anomalous objects near Earth, those who insist uncomfortable ideas are unscientific are holding back potentially important discoveries.
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Written by avi_loeb
Loeb is the founding director of Harvard University’s Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the Astronomy department at Harvard University (2011–2020). He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos.”
In the printed version of a New-York Times Op-Ed, Bret Stephens commented on the lab leak theory for COVID-19: “Sometimes science is hurt most by those who think they are defending it.” This sentiment reverberates in many other contexts. Let me explain.
When the nitrogen iceberg theory was proposed to explain the weird properties of the first interstellar object `Oumuamua, it was embraced by mainstream astronomers with a sigh of relief that the anomalous object was finally explained in a natural context. We had never seen a chunk of frozen nitrogen floating within the Solar system before, and being detected first — `Oumuamua should represent a common population of objects.
Shortly afterwards, I wrote a paper with my student, Amir Siraj, showing that this model requires much more raw material of nitrogen than available in all the stars within the Milky Way galaxy. This was not a reflection of a previously-noted abundance problem for interstellar objects, but a specific deficiency of the nitrogen theory — which associates `Oumuamua with a fragment chipped off the surface of a Pluto-like planet around another star. The limited supply of nitrogen on exo-Pluto surfaces and the requirement that the interstellar journey would last just half a billion years — or else most of the nitrogen ice on `Oumuamua would evaporate, leads to a mass budget problem. But this drawback was ignored so as to sideline the weirdness of `Oumuamua.
If `Oumuamua is made of nitrogen, then we should be intrigued more rather than less by its discovery — because we had never seen anything like it before. By arguing “business as usual” and not seeking new evidence to test the reality of our theory, we only maintain our ignorance.
Keep in mind that ignorance is like the number zero. Its product with any topic leads to no new content.
As a result, ignorance allows people to maintain prior convictions. This benefit was embraced by philosophers who refused to look through the telescope of Galileo Galilei — the pioneer of evidence-based science. These philosophers “knew” that the Sun moves around the Earth. Strangely enough, four centuries after this experience, the same theme is advocated in a recent paper written by a philosopher who used abstract arguments to claim that `Oumuamua must have had a natural origin. Haven’t we learned already from Galileo that we should look for answers through our telescopes?
And this is not the only context to which Bret Stephens observation applies. The Pentagon report delivered to Congress on June 25th this year admits the existence of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) whose nature is unknown. This is an unusual admission by national security officials, who are supposed to deliver the most conservative messages to the public. It is intriguing enough to motivate scientific inquiry towards the goal of identifying the unidentified. Some of the UAP discovered since March 2019 — when a new reporting mechanism was established by the US Navy, are likely real objects. The report states: “a majority of UAP were registered across multiple sensors, to include radar, infrared, electro-optical, weapon seekers, and visual observation”. UAP could be human-made (in which case, they would imply a national intelligence shortcoming), natural atmospheric phenomena or extraterrestrial in origin.
All possibilities imply something new and interesting that we do not know about. Hence, it would be exciting to gain insight into the nature of UAP by assembling fresh scientific data. Most UAP might have mundane explanations, but even if only one object is of extraterrestrial origin — it would have a huge impact on society. This is why I dedicated an entire book titled “Extraterrestrial”, to the possibility that the anomalous interstellar object `Oumuamua might be artificial in origin, since it did not resemble any comet or asteroid observed before.
The Pentagon report admits: “Sociocultural stigmas and sensor limitations remain obstacles to collecting data on UAP… reputational risk may keep many observers silent, complicating scientific pursuit of the topic”. It adds: “The sensors mounted on U.S. military platforms are typically designed to fulfill specific missions. As a result, those sensors are not generally suited for identifying UAP”. The report avoids any scientific discussion of the possibility that the unexplained phenomena are extraterrestrial in origin, since this goes beyond the charter assigned to the government’s task force.
Given these limiting factors, the study of UAP should now shift from the talking points of national security administrators and politicians to the mainstream of science, where it would be studied by scientists rather than by people who were not trained as scientists.
New scientific data can clear up the fog in interpreting the nature of UAP. This was the motivation for announcing The Galileo Project under my leadership, whose goal is to look through telescopes for the scientific data that would reveal the nature of weird objects like `Oumuamua or UAP.
Science is not be dictated by authoritative statements based on past experience. Instead, progress relies on appreciating anomalies and actively pursuing new clues when the existing data is insufficient. Uncertainty should encourage scientists to seek more data rather than get entrenched in pre-conceptions. Former top-level government officials who had access to the classified UAP data, including former U.S. President Barack Obama, former Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe, former CIA Director James Woolsey and former Senator Harry Reid, stated that they believe UAP is a serious matter, worthy of scientific inquiry. If so, how can scientists — who are supposed to be open-minded, avoid the inquiry?
The posture that we are smart enough to know the answer in advance, results in a self-fulfilling-prophecy that dismisses the need to collect new data, which in turn supports the premise that the existing data for anomalies is not convincing. This loop maintains a status-quo of ignorance and promotes speculations by the public. The duty of scientists is to promote evidence-based knowledge, not to assume that they know the answers based on past experience.
It is therefore surprising that the Pentagon report was followed by pushback from some scientists, including astrophysicists and SETI advocates. To figure out the nature of `Oumuamua-like objects or UAP might require less funds than were already spent in the search for the elusive nature of dark matter, a subject with much less impact on society.
Our Galactic neighbors could be out there irrespective of whether we look for them through our open windows, in the same way that the Earth continued to move around the Sun even when Galileo was put in house arrest.
Ignorance can be maintained forever if we refuse to look for evidence that may prove our convictions wrong. Pretending that we have no neighbors will only make us unprepared for the day when they will knock on our front door. Opening that door would indeed provide the extraordinary evidence that some scientists require, but it will arrive too late for contemplating a proper response. Just as my daughters benefitted greatly from being exposed to smarter kids in kindergarten, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs might acquire new aspirations from The Galileo Project finding extraterrestrial technological equipment.
Anomalies should be celebrated rather than ridiculed. They offer an opportunity to learn something new about nature. Science is a learning experience and unexpected discoveries tend to rattle pre-conceived notions. Quantum entanglement or “action at a distance” appeared “spooky” to Albert Einstein, but physicists accepted it when they learned from later experiments that he was wrong. Experimental anomalies are the precursor for progress in our scientific knowledge of reality.
Altogether, science is work in progress. Most of the time there is not sufficient data to narrow down the range of possible interpretations. Under these circumstances, we are often advised by colleagues not to reveal to the public how the “sausage” of scientific knowledge is made, because the public might lose trust in the scientific consensus on other issues like global climate change. My view is exactly the opposite. By exposing the most common state of science as “work in progress” in which multiple interpretations are entertained when evidence is inconclusive, we would make the scientific process as exciting as a detective story before the case is figured out. A consensus among scientists on the final verdict will gain the public’s trust because the evidence on which it is based overcomes any reasonable doubt. Announcing just “final results” in press conferences creates the impression that academia is an occupation of the elite and not a process of using common sense to rule out alternative interpretations.
Over the past decade, it became fashionable among philosophers to defend theoretical physics fashions such as the string theory landscape, the multiverse, supersymmetry, extra-dimensions, or some versions of cosmic inflation, which are immune to experimental falsifiability tests in the foreseeable future. These popular areas of mathematical gymnastics do not “put skin in the game” and avoid making predictions that can be falsified by experimental data. This led some to suggest that the tent of physics needs to be redefined more broadly to include philosophy. Recently, Jeroen van Dongen joked in the concluding sentence of a review paper that he “would like to propose a name for the new non-empirical paradigm, honoring its Kantian credentials: let’s call it ‘meta’- physics, and keep funding it as generously as before.“ My preferred interpretation of this suggestion is that the funding level of untestable theories in physics should match the current support of metaphysics (which is to say, very low).
Redefining science is not the right way to maintain its vitality. There are still numerous thriving frontiers in modern science where experimental feedback is practiced and appreciated as a necessary ingredient of the scientific method pioneered by Galileo. Scientific studies of reality do not need defense from those who violate their sacred principle of advancing evidence-based knowledge.
Trail of the Saucers, published by Bryce Zabel and co-edited with David Bates, focuses on UAP reality news, culture, history, and analysis. This is Avi Loeb’s first contribution, and we are proud to add his voice. Here are three other related articles from the files —
