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He's the face of the question because of his active pragmatism for an answer -however grandiose or queer - is magnitudes more vocal and free-thinking relative t

He's the face of the question because of his active pragmatism for an answer -however grandiose or queer - is magnitudes more vocal and free-thinking relative to the passive and resigned attempts of his cohorts at the institutions. It's sad to see his epic tainted with dismissal so shallowly here. If, as a certain admired man once said, "“extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”", then surely extraordinary thought processes, ideas, and science may be needed.

maxbond 3y ago
It is not a virtue to be very loud about your research when you don't have the receipts to back it up. Material science just had a huge to-do about this with LK-99. People who are serious about finding extraterrestrial life don't make so much noise as Loeb - because there's not much to tell. But the progress is actually tremendous. With the JWST we've been able to identify a chemical reaction in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system for the first time. We've recently "mapped" a planet outside our solar system for the first time (granted, the map was 1 pixel, identifying one part of the planet as darker than another). This is the kind of work that could potentially identify extraterrestrial life. It's entirely possible (dare I say likely? That's a lay opinion to be clear) that we are, right now, gathering the data that will result in the first detection of extraterrestrial life (to be clear, I mean more along the lines of "extraterrestrial trees" than "little green men"). But it's slow, methodical work. And it could easily take several more decades.
- Jerrrry 3y ago
  >that we are, right now, gathering the data that will result in the first detection of extraterrestrial life I agree; although bio-signatures may be the most currently poignant way of predicating the existence of life, there is almost always a suspicion of doubt - since its impossible to prove a negative - that some signatures may actually be of natural origin. Techno-signatures, however, colossally mute that chance; and I hope we happen upon that vicissitude in our lifetime, however astronomically improbable that may be, from out light cone, to another.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    OK, but you get that there are multiple whole fields of academic study on these topics, right? Loeb didn't conceive of any of this stuff; the field for the most part doesn't really need our ideas or intuition on where they should be looking (unless you want to put the work in to contribute to the field yourself).

maxbond 3y ago

It is not a virtue to be very loud about your research when you don't have the receipts to back it up. Material science just had a huge to-do about this with LK-99. People who are serious about finding extraterrestrial life don't make so much noise as Loeb - because there's not much to tell. But the progress is actually tremendous. With the JWST we've been able to identify a chemical reaction in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system for the first time. We've recently "mapped" a planet outside our solar system for the first time (granted, the map was 1 pixel, identifying one part of the planet as darker than another). This is the kind of work that could potentially identify extraterrestrial life. It's entirely possible (dare I say likely? That's a lay opinion to be clear) that we are, right now, gathering the data that will result in the first detection of extraterrestrial life (to be clear, I mean more along the lines of "extraterrestrial trees" than "little green men"). But it's slow, methodical work. And it could easily take several more decades.

Jerrrry 3y ago
>that we are, right now, gathering the data that will result in the first detection of extraterrestrial life I agree; although bio-signatures may be the most currently poignant way of predicating the existence of life, there is almost always a suspicion of doubt - since its impossible to prove a negative - that some signatures may actually be of natural origin. Techno-signatures, however, colossally mute that chance; and I hope we happen upon that vicissitude in our lifetime, however astronomically improbable that may be, from out light cone, to another.
- tptacek 3y ago
  OK, but you get that there are multiple whole fields of academic study on these topics, right? Loeb didn't conceive of any of this stuff; the field for the most part doesn't really need our ideas or intuition on where they should be looking (unless you want to put the work in to contribute to the field yourself).