SUNY Stony Brook astrophysicist Paul Sutter, in a new column for Space.com, has insisted that the search for intelligent life among the stars should be stopped – though, he did not mean that we are alone in the universe.
“Humans have scanned and searched the heavens for signs of other advanced civilizations in the universe,” Sutter wrote. “And we’ve found nothing. Absolutely nothing. So maybe we shouldn’t be so focused on intelligent life but on any sort of life whatsoever.”
Intelligent life might not be common in the universe
The idea behind the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), as per Sutter, is based on the theory that “intelligent life should be easier to detect than regular, non-intelligent life because intelligent creatures are capable of really making their presence known.”
“But something in this argument is going wrong,” Sutter said. “Either intelligent life isn’t as common as we might have hoped, or it’s not as detectable as we might have hoped. Either way, it doesn’t look like SETI will bear fruit anytime soon.”
He says that the only thing to be done is to search for signs of life in the sky broader, by observing biosignatures that could suggest less advanced life on extraterrestrial worlds.
Finding non-intelligent life should be the aim
“Our first evidence for life outside Earth will take the form of a wiggle in a line on a plot, telling us that living creatures have dramatically altered the equilibrium of their home planet,” he said. “Non-intelligent life may not be as common as intelligent life (though, truth be told, we have no idea how common either is), but simple creatures are still capable of making themselves noticeable.”
Besides, NASA scientists urged the scientific community to create a plan for when evidence of alien life is discovered. James Green, the agency’s chief scientist, co-authored a new article that asks researchers to lay down a framework for reporting evidence of alien life. The article has been published in the journal Nature. In the article, the authors note the importance of clearly communicating any evidence of alien life, as well as establishing clear expectations for the public.
