How will public react if we discover life on another planet?

[jim mcnamara]

There are lots of decent articles about this, examples:

https://www.space.com/40435-finding-aliens-humanity-reaction.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_cultural_impact_of_extraterrestrial_contact - in part, discusses how speculative this subject can be

Well, since Jenner first vaccinated people against smallpox there has been pushback against vaccinations from the public.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1200696/

Fast forward 200 years and we still have pushback - anti-vaxxers using the internet pulpit. So, can we conclude that finding life "out there"will fare any better?

Maybe I'm a curmudgeon but I say 'Probably No'.

Why?

An analogy is best given by an example from science - Gradualism, The Scablands in Washington State and Catastrophic Geology $^1$. The critics of the concept of a major flood gouging out incredible amounts of land in a few weeks had a lot to lose. :like a lifetime of their field work interpreted as Gradualism. Including the Scablands. Bottom line it would prove some their life's work wrong, so they were disinclined to agree with something new and looked for every which way to deny it. You can see the parallel I am trying to make. This is how Science works. Skepticism overcome by easily verified facts. So. It eventually got sorted. After a very long time. Unlike the vaccination example above.

Counterpoint. i.e., non-science folks:
It is the public who funds extraterrestrial life research through taxes. Frank the Facebook Fan, FFF, is not a scientist. FFF pays taxes, votes.

In my PF mentor role, a lot of 'personal theory' (buzz word for 'I made this Science up') kinds posts come into PF. The posts usually do not make it into the forums. .. we hope. FFF and his cohorts contribute most of them. So weird ideas abound out there in the wild. You have no idea.

PF's niche is unusual because it deals with currently accepted Science, not new theory development or debunking nonsense. New posters sometimes bump heads with that concept.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...eact-alien-life-discovery-aaas-space-science/ --This article says an announcement of living exobiology will be well received.

$^1$Scablands formation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missoula_Floods and Harlan Bretz.

 

[phinds]

Maybe I'm a curmudgeon but I say 'Probably No'.

I agree. The average citizen is more interested in keeping their job and what's for dinner and what's on TV. It would be a headline sensation for a while but I think the general public wouldn't really care all that much. Might cause some consternation in religious circles, but maybe not there either. We STEM types would like be MUCH more interested that the general public and more willing to listen to the facts, whatever they turned out to be.

 

[Evo]

Well, alien life, no, ALIEN INVASION, probably. There's a difference. Problem is, some people can't tell the difference.

Merry Christmas.

 

[fresh_42]

As long as alien life isn't brought to earth, I don't see a problem. The more as "life" will probably be bacteria or something like that. Since life is likely carbon based, too, I only fear its exchange. It was alien viruses which killed most of Americas indigenous population.

 

[BillTre]

Personally, I would find it interesting.
I would assume that some % of the population would have a similar feeling about it.

If it is just some bugs on Mars, I can't see anyone getting too fearful about it.
Some would not be interested.

 

[DaveC426913]

It was alien viruses which killed most of Americas indigenous population.

It was temporarily geographically-isolated viruses, originally from a common ancestor of less than 50,000 years, that killed most of Americas indigenous population. But your point is made.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Well, since Jenner first vaccinated people against smallpox there has been pushback against vaccinations from the public...Fast forward 200 years and we still have pushback - anti-vaxxers using the internet pulpit.

This is really two different kinds of pushback. In the 18th century, efficacy was a concern, and for good reason. In the 21st, very few argue that vaccines are not effective - the argument is that side effects are worse than advertised, and so long as other people's kids are vaccinated, their own will be just fine. So which kind of pushback are you talking about?

If you are talking about intelligent life, once there is two-way communication, I think it will be kind of hard to refute. However, that will take decades if it happens at all. Until then, I think it is far more likely that people will jump the gun. There are examples - the Little Green Men of 3C273, the Wow! signal, the "alien megastructure" of KIC 8462852, and such.

If you are talking about non-intelligent life - say something like bacteria or algae on Europa - the odds are good that it is something microbial and possibly on the edge of life/non-life. Are bacteria alive? Viruses? (If not, how can you kill them?) Prions? If something is discovered that looks a lot like an alga but also a lot like a virus, would we call it "life"? In such a situation would it be irrational to say "No, that's not life. It's close. But not life." (And is it rational to think that about a virus today?)

It was temporarily geographically-isolated viruses, originally from a common ancestor of less than 50,000 years, that killed most of Americas indigenous population.

And bacteria in the other direction.

I think the risk of alien micro-organisms is not disease. There's no reason to think or biochemistries are similar enough to allow that. I think the bigger risk is from these different biochemistries. Suppose you had an alien microbe that excreted cyanogen? That would wreck your day for sure. If some alien showed up on Earth 3B years ago with a jug full of algae, he could remake the entire biosphere.

 

[Bandersnatch]

Maybe I'm a curmudgeon but I say 'Probably No'.

I agree.

Counterpoint: you're both curmudgeons.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I've always thought it we found bacteria or simple celled organisms it would be massive, but no hysteria. If we find "little green men" then all bets are off!

 

[fresh_42]

I recently listened to an astrophysicist on tv who estimated the time span which is necessary to develop something like us. He came to the conclusion that we definitely belong to the first populations rather than to the younger ones: simply by adding the timespan stars need to create the necessary elements. Ok, he wasn't a designated fan of little green men and even less of necessary technologies to deal with interstellar distances, but neither am I. $c$ is a hard limit. And it is slow.

 

[chemisttree]

Who’s “the public?”

 

[Klystron]

I encountered strong serendipity reading Jim's thread this morning. In a different context I read a section of Ian Lange's "Ice Age Mammals of North America" this morning describing how repeated drainage from 'Glacial Lake Missoula' scoured Eastern Washington state while also discussing academic resistance to the concept. To then encounter the same example minutes later in a thread on alien life discovery reminds me how connected knowledge appears.

While sympathetic to SETI and supportive of new initiatives to discover non-terrestrial life, I find studying extant and extinct animals satisfies my personal thirst for alien life. Not only dinosaurs or even land-dwelling animals; aquatic mammals and reptiles beg the question of what pressures or opportunities lead land animals to return to water based lives. Relative late comers to North America such as bison survived extinction of horses, camels and true elephants. Dry basins in my desert state are surrounded by ancient beaches and high water marks on cliff faces replete with marine fossils. Science is amazing.

 

[pinball1970]

Life found elsewhere would be absolutely huge much bigger than the moon landings.
The moon landings were a triumph of human achievement but we always knew the moon was there.
Finding life elsewhere would be a triumph of human achievement AND have huge philosophical, religious AND scientific implications.