The Manic Pessimism of a Small Sample Set
I don’t know if it’s because of junk journalism, junk science, or small-minded scientists being the vocal minority in every article pertaining to the subject (probably while all the real scientists are off science-ing), but the most commonly reported views on the probability/frequency of extraterrestrial life are absurd.
I’m not talking in terms of intelligent life per se, and especially not with regard to interplanetary civilizations – most certainly not the bug-eyed probe happy “grays” that are the contemporary lore – but regarding life of any kind in its spontaneous origination on any celestial body distinct from Earth as we know it. Microbes on Mars, or under the ice on Europa, or on one of the dozens of exoplanets now being discovered, or anything of the like.
The views and notions bandied about most often in anything approaching mainstream are something along the lines of, “if there are signs of life there, then it must be incredibly abundant throughout the universe!” Balanced with a similar illogical assumption that, “if there are no signs of life there, then it must be tremendously precious and we are so very alone.”
This is like rolling a billion-sided die and looking for it to come up with the same number twice. In sequence. And giving up if it doesn’t happen after 2 tries.
In all truth we have so few places to look (in terms of gross numbers of bodies), and so few means to examine those (due to proximity, risk, and simple logistics), that we’re not even making consistent assessments of those resources which are available to us humans. Projecting from this immensely small set of incomplete samples into some trend line or tangent as a predictor of the universe at large is ludicrously bad science all around. And they – documentary producers, journalists, scientists (in context or otherwise, who knows) – keep repeatedly taking the same view of immediate doom or glory without really examining the numbers.
The reality? It’s closer to that billion-sided die, with a not-insignificant portion of it harboring a probability for life-sustaining conditions, and opportunities to roll it millions or even hundreds of millions of times. We’re not even up to half a dozen, yet. Heck, I only spot us 2 tries because we’re OK at making it to our biggest natural satellite, and we had some pretty cool probes make it to Mars (and then rounding up generously from those slivers of experience).
Let’s take a decent and level view, mkay? Life? It’s probably rare, but there are so many opportunities for it in the universe it’s bound to be out there somewhere (scales of distance just making it hard to assess that). We should get a statistically relevant sampling before plotting conclusions.
Or attach some dynamometers to Carl Sagan’s final resting ground and use that to power major metropolitan areas every time someone re-publishes the same ignorant coin-flip perspective.
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I, anonymous commenter, hereby demand that you read “Rare Earth”, which is found both at http://www.amazon.com/Rare-Earth-Complex-Uncommon-Universe/dp/0387987010 and on my bookshelf.
In which Ward and Brownlee admit that “It is very difficult to do statistics with an N of 1…”
So they say microbes are common, but fancy intelligent stuff is rare. I’m totally cool with that. Even with the multiplication of one statistical factor by another to come up with an increasingly infinitesimal opportunity for evolution of eucarya that posits we (as intelligent beings) may even be sole representatives of the Milky Way.
There are, however, so many galaxies in the potential sample set, that anything’s possible. What I’m taking umbrage to in my post is not these fellows – it’s the ones that swing wildly between two opposite views on the smallest bit of info, and somehow expect the assessment of the universe to conform to their preconceived notions. Bad science makes me grumpy.
I will also totally read the book. I do not apparently have a copy yet myself, so I will acquire and consume this.