Abstract EANA2024-85

Does extraterrestrial life exist? Some have claimed that, since we can’t even answer this basic question in the affirmative, astrobiology does not constitute a serious topic of study. For example, George G. Simpson famously remarked, “[astrobiology] has yet to demonstrate that its subject matter exists!” (see Jeancolas et al. 2024).

Sixty years have passed since Simpson’s remark, and it is still fair to say that astrobiology has yet to demonstrate that extraterrestrial life exists. But ‘demonstrate’ is a strong word. There are many scientific topics where something is arguably not yet demonstrated, but one would have to call it likely, or even exceedingly likely. When it comes to the basic question of the existence of extraterrestrial life, we may find a great deal of (warranted) confidence in the relevant scientific community, even if we are some distance from demonstrating its existence. For example, even without demonstrating the existence of extraterrestrial life, it could be the case that there exists a consensus amongst relevant experts that extraterrestrial life does indeed exist. And – when certain conditions are met – there are good reasons to link scientific consensus with truth (Vickers 2022).

In this study, we appropriated a newly developed surveying platform (Mitchell Finnigan et al. 2023) to conduct a set of surveys, targeting the global astrobiology community. These surveys were complemented by one survey of non-astrobiologist scientists, for the purposes of making a comparison, and to provide a basic bias check regarding the astrobiology community results. The statements S1, S2, S3 chosen for the surveys were:

(S1): It is likely that extraterrestrial life (of at least a basic kind) exists somewhere in the universe.

(S2): It is likely that extraterrestrial organisms significantly larger and more complex than bacteria exist somewhere in the universe.

(S3): It is likely that extraterrestrial organisms with advanced cognitive abilities comparable to or superior to those of humans exist somewhere in the universe.

These statements were carefully chosen to broadly reflect the possible existence of basic, complex, and intelligent extraterrestrial life, whilst seeking to avoid controversies such as the meaning of ‘intelligent’.

During February-June 2024 the surveys were conducted. Votes were anonymous, but information was recorded to allow a comparison of any difference in opinion between physicists and biologists. In all surveys conducted, at least 400 responses were recorded, making these the biggest surveys of the global astrobiology community ever conducted. We here present the results of these surveys and provide analysis and interpretation. The results will be illuminating for both experts and laypersons.

 

References

Jeancolas C, Gillen C, McMahon S, Vickers P (2024). Is Astrobiology Serious Science? Nat Astron 8: 5–7.

Mitchell Finnigan S, Sheppard J, and Vickers P (2023). IASCPolls: The Institute for Ascertaining Scientific Consensus Polling Platform. Zenodo: https://zenodo.org/records/8155054.

Vickers P (2022). Identifying Future-Proof Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.