Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth

by Avi Loeb

Many scientists argue that we should communicate information to the public only once our collective detective work has produced a nearly unanimous conclusion. These colleagues of mine believe that discretion is necessary to preserve our good image. Otherwise, they reason, the public could come to doubt scientists and the scientific process. Indeed, this occurs even when there is near unanimous conclusion among scientists. Consider, they often point out, the minority of the public who still question climate change. Stepping into controversy that could erode the stature of science, they worry, is too great a risk. But my view is different. I think that in order to be credible, we need to show that scientific inquiry is a process that is more common and familiar than much of the public presumes. Too often, the approach taken by my colleagues contributes to the populist view of science as an occupation of the elite and fosters a sense of alienation between scientists and the public. But science is not some ivory-tower affair that, through inaccessible means, yields ironclad truths that can be dispensed only by sages. The scientific method is, in fact, closer to the commonsense approach to problem solving that a plumber adopts when trying to fix a leaking pipe.