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I think he _hopes_, but doesn't believe. The actual papers around this project don't mention aliens (but they're ever-so-slightly hinted at, if you read between
by Mizza 3y ago
I think he _hopes_, but doesn't believe. The actual papers around this project don't mention aliens (but they're ever-so-slightly hinted at, if you read between the lines). They treat it like an interesting metallic meteorite.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2209.09905.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2209.09905.pdf
I think it's cool enough without needing to talk about ET technology, but it helps with the funding and exposure, so I don't really mind at as long as it remains fundamentally scientific.
- BiteCode_dev 3y agoYes, as long as the science is good, having fun in the process is not horrible.
- jacknews 3y agoI'm not sure it's ideal that the people collecting the data have such a definite view on what they expect it to indicate.
- BiteCode_dev 3y agoIt's not, but that's the dirty secret of researchers, the most passionate ones always have some conviction inside. They just don't voice it.
- nomel 3y agoThis data almost certainly wouldn't exist, without that view. In some cases, it's much harder to find something you're not looking for.
- TheBlight 3y agoThe data will be open. It doesn't matter what they think of the data.
- nocoiner 3y agoIt’s not horrible, but every time I see his name on a publication, I know what the primary subtext is going to be. It will definitely be worth it if he’s the first scientist to establish deeply convincing evidence of an extraterrestrial civilization, but for now he seems like he’s mostly hat and short on cattle.
- ceejayoz 3y agoHe's gone further than hope alone in public statements. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/harvards-top-astronomer-says-an-alien-ship-may-be-among-us--and-he-doesnt-care-what-his-colleagues-think/2019/02/04/a5d70bb0-24d5-11e9-90cd-dedb0c92dc17_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/harvards-top-... > And while he’s not saying it’s definitely aliens, he is saying he can’t think of anything other than aliens that fits the data. And he’s saying that all over international news. > “Many people expected once there would be this publicity, I would back down,” Loeb says. “If someone shows me evidence to the contrary, I will immediately back down.”
- Mizza 3y agoThat's about ‘Oumuamua, a different object. That one is still a mystery.
- ceejayoz 3y agoSeeing aliens everywhere, not just one place, is worse, not better.
- svachalek 3y agoHis position (I've read his book) is that if we find extrasolar objects that are easily produced artificially but require incredibly exotic conditions to be produced naturally, materials we have never seen or imagined yet, then the mainstream view is to assume the natural origin. But he thinks it's reasonable to assume that we are not the first technological civilization and as far as we know, the galaxy could be full of drifting alien space junk, and from that point of view it's reasonable to first think of sheet metal rather than spears of frozen hydrogen for example.
- _a_a_a_ 3y ago"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from lumps of metal and random chunks of rock" At least when it rains down on us as meteorites.