36 Alien Civilizations In The Milky Way? Seriously?

Debunking Ridiculous Claims From Wishful Thinking Scientists

 

Perhaps you’ve seen the good news!  Forbes reports “There Are At Least 36 Intelligent Alien Civilizations In Our Galaxy, Say Scientists”!  Wow, 36!  That’s a lot.  Can’t wait to meet them!

Under the cryptic title “The Astrobiological Copernican Weak and Strong Limits for Intelligent Life” two scientists from the University of Nottingham, Tom Westby and Christopher J. Conselice, published their recent work on June 15, 2020 in The Astrophysical Journal.  In the abstract of that paper they state:

“In the Strong [Astrobiological Copernican] scenario (under the strictest set of assumptions), we find there should be at least civilizations within our Galaxy: this is a lower limit, based on the assumption that the average lifetime, L, of a communicating civilization is 100 yr (since we know that our own civilization has had radio communications for this time).”

The Forbes writer who picked up on this used the authors’ conclusion to post a sensationalist article that, at the time of this post, had been viewed 2 million times.  This is a classic case of using a highly sensational yet dubious article to benefit a generally reputable online publication.

Should we expect to meet our alien friends anytime soon?  Eh, don’t hold your breath.

 

What’s The Real Story?

Fortunately, cooler and more rationale heads at Forbes have prevailed and risen above sensationalism to basically say, “yeah, not so much.”  As it turns out, Westby and Conselice make a whole bunch of ludicrous assumptions to arrive at their conclusion.

Noted PhD astrophysicist, professor and author Ethan Siegel published a rebuttal, also in Forbes, the very next day (June 16, 2020) titled “36 Alien Civilizations In The Milky Way?  The Science Behind A Ridiculous Headline”.  Here are some key quotes from the rebuttal:

• This is absolutely not a true claim
• But as we get into the more advanced questions involving alien life, our understanding gives way to ignorance.  We do not know how frequently, given an Earth-sized world in an Earth-like orbit around a Sun-like star, life will arise on that world.
• All we know, if we’re being honest, is that things occurred on Earth the way they did, and everything else is nothing more than healthy speculation, at best.
• Why, then, are we hearing claims that 36 alien civilizations likely exist in our Milky Way right now?  Because that new estimate is based on an ill-founded assumption that the authors make:

‘[W]e make a key assumption: since the time required for the development of communicative intelligent civilization on our own planet is of order 5 Gyr [5 billion years], then we propose that life will have a reasonable probability of forming on another planet such as the Earth in the habitable zone of a suitable star within our Galaxy in a similar amount of time.’

• Is this a good assumption? In a scientific sense, absolutely not.

From there, Siegel goes into some detail on why that assumption is invalid.  At the end of that, he concludes:

“The only problems are that our conclusions are only as good as our assumptions, which we have no reason to believe are very good. There may well be 36 alien civilizations in the Milky Way right now, but science has a long way to go before anyone — even the paper’s authors — are convinced of that conclusion.”

Siegel is being kind.  Basing a paper on a flagrantly flawed assumption and then publishing it in a reputable science journal is inexcusable.  Honestly, it’s just embarrassing.  Using a sample size of one (Earth) to publish a conclusion like “we propose that life will have a reasonable probability of forming on another planet such as the Earth” is shockingly poor science.

Thankfully there are still rational scientists in the world like Siegel who have the courage to call out such bogus wishful thinking and refute “fake news” junk science headlines that result!  The sad part is Siegel’s article has a readership of 100K (at the time of this post) compared to 2 million for the bogus article – a mere 5% of the total damage.  Yet another case where sensational fake news wins over the truth.

The good news is you are now equipped with the truth published by a reputable scientist.  This should be a lesson to all of us: look for verifiable facts and evidence before blindly believing wishful thinkers who make statements under the supposed authority of science.

 

More Good News

Siegel is not alone.  There are many other reputable, well-trained and highly published scientists who have the courage to refute junk science and speak the truth – even when it’s inconvenient.  Here are just a few examples:

• Dr. Hugh Ross is a practicing researcher and teacher with a PhD in astronomy who did post doctoral work at CalTech.  He has also authored many books, articles, videos and podcasts.  Dr. Ross is the Founder and President of Reasons to Believe.  Reasons To Believe content is cited several places in the God Created The Universe set of material highlighted in the menu at the top of the page starting with And God Said . . .
• Dr. James Tour is a Professor of Chemistry, Computer Science, Material Science and Nano Engineering at Rice University. He’s a synthetic organic chemist with more than 700 research publications, 130 patents, and many prominent awards including the Feynman Prize, NASA Space Act Award and Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award. He was also named one of the top 10 chemists in the world by Thompson Reuters.  Dr. Tour is highlighted in several places within the God Created Life content highlighted in the menu at the top of the page starting with The Hand Of God In The Cell – Part I
• Dr. Douglas Axe is Professor of Molecular Biology at Biola University and a UC Berkeley, Caltech and Cambridge trained researcher who’s work has been published in many scientific journals and books.  In his book, Undeniable; How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed, Axe describes his extensive research and experimentation with proteins.  Dr. Axe is highlighted within the God Created Life content starting with God Created The Protein – Part I
• Dr. Stephen Meyer is also a Cambridge trained researcher, Director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute and a renowned author and speaker.  His latest book is Signature In The Cell; DNA And The Evidence For Intelligent Design.  Dr. Meyer is highlighted in the God Created Life and God Created Complex Life content starting with God Created The Protein – Part I

 

Take a look at some of their content on the pages cited above – if you haven’t already done so.  All of them present remarkable, insightful and irrefutable facts about the universe, our place in it and life itself that very clearly and completely disprove the wishful thinking assumptions made by Westby and Conselice.

The key conclusion here is this: follow the facts and evidence wherever they lead and both recognize and ignore science derived from baseless assumptions, speculative conjectures, personal beliefs and wishful thinking.  Review the evidence presented on this site, watch the videos, listen to the experts and then draw your own conclusions.