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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and it is Saturday, so we have

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Speaker 1: a vault episode for you. This one, originally published eleven two,

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, is an interview with astrophysicist Adam Frank

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Speaker 1: about the search for alien life.

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Speaker 2: Let's dive right.

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Speaker 3: In Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb. On today's episode, I'll be chatting with

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Speaker 1: Adam Frank, a professor of astrophysics at the University of

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Speaker 1: Rochester and author of the new book The Little Book

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Speaker 1: of Aliens, which is available now in all fourmats. So hey,

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Speaker 1: let's jump right into the conversation. I think you're going

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Speaker 1: to really enjoy this one.

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Speaker 2: Hi, Adam, Welcome to the show. It's great to be here.

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Speaker 2: Thanks so much.

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Speaker 1: You discussed this a bit in the new book, The

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Speaker 1: Little Book of Aliens, and of course I have to

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Speaker 1: ask you about it here in the episode. How did

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Speaker 1: you first become interested in the possibility of alien life?

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Speaker 2: Well, it's hard for me to remember a time when

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Speaker 2: I wasn't interested in the possibility of alien life. As

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Speaker 2: I discussed in the book. I got my start on

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Speaker 2: this when I was five years old, when I wandered

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Speaker 2: into my dad's library. My dad was a writer who

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Speaker 2: had an interest in science fiction, science and science fiction,

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Speaker 2: and they're on the lower levels of the library, you know,

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Speaker 2: the lower shelf there was all of his pulp science

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Speaker 2: fiction magazines, all those amazing stories and Isaac Asmanov's you

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Speaker 2: know whatever, and those pictures. You know, every cover had

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Speaker 2: a semi lurid illustration of dudes bouncing around on you know,

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Speaker 2: alien worlds and michel entire space suits or rocket ships

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Speaker 2: blasting through space, or bug eyed monsters and aliens. And

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Speaker 2: from that moment on, like, I've never had any other choice. So,

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Speaker 2: you know, after thirty years of being an astronomer, of

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Speaker 2: being an astrophysicist, including you know, a fair amount of

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Speaker 2: time recently last decade or so focusing on astrobiology, I

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Speaker 2: wrote the book because I really wanted people to see

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Speaker 2: how close we were to scientists finding evidence one way

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Speaker 2: or the other for alien life where they live on

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Speaker 2: alien planets.

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Speaker 1: Now I'll get back to like the real hunt for

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Speaker 1: extraterrestrial life here in a second. But on the subject

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Speaker 1: of just media that inspired you. Were there any particular

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Speaker 1: favorite films? And I have to add the caveat. I'm

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Speaker 1: asking this as someone who appreciates both higher browse sci

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Speaker 1: fi but also the silliest cheese. So don't shy away

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Speaker 1: from mentioning anything from the discount band.

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Speaker 2: Plan nine from Outer Space. No, No, that actually not

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Speaker 2: so listen. I'm a huge science fiction fan, huge, and

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Speaker 2: so when I was a kid, I devoured everything there was.

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Speaker 2: And you kids today don't know how bad it was

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Speaker 2: back then. Right back then, you literally had Star Trek reruns.

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Speaker 2: So this is the mid seventies, right when I'm coming

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Speaker 2: up as a kid Star Trek reruns. You had Lost

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Speaker 2: in Space, which was terrible, right, and then there was

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Speaker 2: all the bad science fiction movies from the fifties that

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Speaker 2: would rerun on like Saturday morning at eleven thirty on

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Speaker 2: what was called Chiller Theater, which was you know, on

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Speaker 2: Channel eleven back in the days when you only had

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Speaker 2: like five or six channels. So I devoured everything, and

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Speaker 2: so the things, the highbrow stuff I loved were my dad.

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Speaker 2: I remember one night my dad wakened me up and say,

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Speaker 2: come on, come on, you gotta watch this. And it

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Speaker 2: was Forbidden Planet, right, which is this classic which is

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Speaker 2: amazing because it's the embodiment of the nineteen fifties pulp

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Speaker 2: science fiction. But it's really smart, right, It's really actually

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Speaker 2: based on the Tempest and the key idea that it

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Speaker 2: has in there, which I explore in the book quite

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Speaker 2: a bit. I have a whole chapter on it, is

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Speaker 2: the idea of dead ancient alien civilizations, right, the vision

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Speaker 2: of the Krell machinery when they're down in the planet,

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Speaker 2: if anybody's ever seen there. So, you know, so all

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Speaker 2: of Star Trek, all you know, movies like This Island Earth,

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Speaker 2: you know, which wasn't so great, but so all of

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Speaker 2: that really shaped my own on thinking about about aliens

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Speaker 2: and about space. It really mattered quite a bit to me.

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Speaker 2: There's also a show called UFOs, which do you know

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Speaker 2: of that one? Have you ever seen that?

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Speaker 1: I don't think I know that one?

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Speaker 2: Though it was it was a British show. It was

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Speaker 2: actually a precursor to Space nineteen ninety nine, do you

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Speaker 2: know that? Yeah, So this was actually the same kind

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Speaker 2: of models. You'll see a lot of similarities, and it

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Speaker 2: was it ran you know. You can find it on

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Speaker 2: the internet you want, and it was this idea that

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Speaker 2: you know, the the UFOs were coming to steal human

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Speaker 2: organs and there was a secret shadow organization which was

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Speaker 2: protecting the Earth from that, and I loved that as well.

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Speaker 2: So pretty much anything I could get my hands on

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Speaker 2: I watched endlessly, and of course Marvel Comics, because there

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Speaker 2: was a whole space side of you know, star Lord.

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Speaker 2: You know. When I when I, you know, I was

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Speaker 2: the the science advisor for Doctor Strange and I got

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Speaker 2: to meet Kevin Figi. We were, you know, in the

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Speaker 2: room working on the script together, and he asked me,

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Speaker 2: you know, what was your favorite star Marvel and I

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Speaker 2: got to like totally nerd out. And there's this like one,

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Speaker 2: this little known edition of star Lord from the seventies,

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Speaker 2: which was actually my favorite because it was a space opera,

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Speaker 2: it was a space adventure. So all of that really

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Speaker 2: shaped my pop culture understanding. And up until streaming, I

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Speaker 2: think I could claim I'd seen every science fiction movie

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Speaker 2: TV show ever made by stream. When streaming happened, it

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Speaker 2: was I was overwhelmed.

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Speaker 1: But now I'm glad you mentioned like the you know,

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Speaker 1: aliens coming for organs and so forth, because of course

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Speaker 1: that's a huge part of it the scarier visions of

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Speaker 1: what alien contact might consist of, and like for my

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Speaker 1: own part, I remember there was a short period in

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Speaker 1: my childhood when I had just seen some uf episodes

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Speaker 1: of unsolved mysteries, and I became legitimately scared for a

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Speaker 1: short amount of time that UFO abduction could happen to me.

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Speaker 1: I just wasn't exposed to like speculative or that many

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Speaker 1: optimistic views of what UFOs could consist of. So I

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Speaker 1: can't help but wonder how many others were sort of

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Speaker 1: fundamentally primed that way toward the possibility of alien life.

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Speaker 2: Well, you know, I have the there's a chapter in

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Speaker 2: the book where I look at sort of the pop

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Speaker 2: culture effects of aliens because you know, one of the

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Speaker 2: maazting things that is happening right now, which is really

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Speaker 2: kind of the purpose or one purpose of the book

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Speaker 2: is to show people how the search for life in

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Speaker 2: the universe is now totally scientifically legitimate, which it wasn't

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Speaker 2: when I was coming up. When I was coming up

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Speaker 2: as a graduate student in the eighties, the search for

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Speaker 2: life was either a joke or it was considered a

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Speaker 2: dead end because the Viking probes in the seventies to

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Speaker 2: Mars hadn't really found anything, so it was a really

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Speaker 2: sort of dead paer in the search for life. And

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Speaker 2: then but now, you know, for reasons I'm sure we're

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Speaker 2: going to talk about, and the reason they know that,

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Speaker 2: which is what a lot of the book is about.

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Speaker 2: We're really you know, the next giant telescope is only

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Speaker 2: is going to be built focusing on the detection of life.

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Speaker 2: So you're right that the pop culture really shaped a

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Speaker 2: lot of people's opinions about what we should think about

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Speaker 2: with aliens and what life in the universe might be. Now,

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Speaker 2: you know, as I discussed in the book, and I'm

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Speaker 2: sure we're going to talk about, I'm very skeptical about

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Speaker 2: that UFOs have anything to do with life outside the universe.

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Speaker 2: But again, as you say, the pop culture stuff, the

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Speaker 2: UFOs and the TV and the movies, whether hybrow or lowbrow,

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Speaker 2: shaped people's understanding of how we should be thinking about

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Speaker 2: life in the universe. And the amazing thing about the

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Speaker 2: science is the science takes us actually in a more

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Speaker 2: imaginative and more amazing directions because you've got to really

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Speaker 2: try and think about it in a systematic way. But

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Speaker 2: it's it's interesting to note, right, many people are afraid

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Speaker 2: of aliens or feeling, you know, they're it's either one

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Speaker 2: either the aliens are like these gods who are coming

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Speaker 2: down to give us the cures for cancer, or they're

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Speaker 2: coming to eat us or mate with us, you know,

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Speaker 2: one of the others.

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Speaker 1: So you mentioned the seventies being this pivotal point, and

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Speaker 1: you talked about this in the book. Why did this

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Speaker 1: What did the serious quitt it, serious consideration of potential

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Speaker 1: alien life look like prior to the seventies and the

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Speaker 1: advent of Seti and what like? What were the limiting

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Speaker 1: factors in how did it change?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So what's interesting is this question are we alone?

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Speaker 2: Is one of the oldest human questions around. You can

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Speaker 2: see the Greeks arguing about it, and you know, the

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Speaker 2: book starts with this discussion of the history of this.

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Speaker 2: So Aristotle and Democratists, you can see them kind of

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Speaker 2: arguing with each other in writing from two thousand, five

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Speaker 2: hundred years ago. Giordano Bruno gets burnt at the stake,

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Speaker 2: you know, for heresy, which had to do with Catholic doctrine.

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Speaker 2: But really one of the reasons he got in trouble

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Speaker 2: was he was advocating for this Pernican view that the

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Speaker 2: Earth was just one planet of many, and many of

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Speaker 2: those planets out among the stars would be inhabited. But

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Speaker 2: what happens, actually the first pivotal decade is the fifties,

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Speaker 2: because you get the Fermi paradox and you get the

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Speaker 2: Drake equation. You get these two things happening at the

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Speaker 2: beginning of the end, which are the first sort of

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Speaker 2: scientific the scientific questions, questions that you could ask a

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Speaker 2: you could ask scientifically, you could pose a research problem

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Speaker 2: and carry it out. And then Drake, Frank Drake carries

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Speaker 2: out at the end of that nineteen sixty the first

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Speaker 2: astro biological experiment ever done. So he takes two radio

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Speaker 2: telescopes and he points him at the sky and he

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Speaker 2: looks for signals from you know, an intelligent civilization something

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Speaker 2: like might be beaming off of Earth right now. And

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Speaker 2: that is the first time anybody's been able to do

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Speaker 2: any kind of experiment asking whether it's dumb life, you know,

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Speaker 2: microbial life, or smart life meaning that builds civilizations. So

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Speaker 2: that launches SETI, that launches the scientific inquiry about a

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Speaker 2: life the universe, and through most of the sixties it's

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Speaker 2: now SETI becomes a field, but it's very marginal. It's

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Speaker 2: still in the you know, there's a few brave scientists

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Speaker 2: doing it, but it's still kind of seen to be

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Speaker 2: kind of out there. And then what happens is the

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Speaker 2: UFOs and everything that's going on with UFOs, which is

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Speaker 2: you know, tends to be the conspiracy theories and the

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Speaker 2: hoaxes and the that starts to cloud the public's opinion

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Speaker 2: about and the scientists even opinion about things like SETI.

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Speaker 2: Now NASA is also at the same time conducting searches,

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Speaker 2: is thinking about life on planets in the Solar System.

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Speaker 2: So there's the Viking landers to Mars, which scoop up

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Speaker 2: some soil and try and test for sort of earthlike microbes.

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Speaker 2: Those have inconclusive results, negative or inconclusive results. So by

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Speaker 2: the time you coming into the eighties, the search for

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Speaker 2: life in the universe is either you still have this

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Speaker 2: sort of what we call the giggle factor that if

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Speaker 2: you tried to mention the search for life in the universe,

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Speaker 2: particularly the search for intelligent life meaning industrial technology life, yeah,

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Speaker 2: eyebrows are going to raise Congress literally some congressmen make

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Speaker 2: hay and that there's I talk about this the giggle

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Speaker 2: factor in the book and show people how this happened.

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Speaker 2: Congress like doesn't even allow NASA to fund SETI because

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Speaker 2: the congressmen are like, this is a waste of taxpayers dollars.

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Speaker 2: You know. So by the time you're into the late eighties,

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Speaker 2: when I'm a graduate student, SETI is just there's a

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Speaker 2: few brave pioneers who are living on you know, private funds,

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Speaker 2: not that SETI. SETI never really got a lot of funding,

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Speaker 2: and that's an important part part of this, but it's

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Speaker 2: living on fumes. There really is barely any SETI going on,

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Speaker 2: and people the thought about, you know, even dumb life

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Speaker 2: on planets had stalled, and so by you know, when

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Speaker 2: you're coming into the nineteen nineties, the idea of life

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Speaker 2: in the universe is almost nobody cares. Nobody's paying except

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Speaker 2: for you know, some pioneers. And certainly when I was

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Speaker 2: a scientist, then there was a sense of like, don't

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Speaker 2: even think about that. That's a dead end, you know,

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Speaker 2: or you're going to become a joke. Don't waste your

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Speaker 2: career on that, which is amazing because again that's the

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Speaker 2: point of the book is to show that right now,

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Speaker 2: this is the this is the most important issue in

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Speaker 2: astronomer or one of the most important issues in astronomy.

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Speaker 2: If you're a young astronomer, good shot that you're going

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Speaker 2: to aim your career at astrobiology. Quite a change, right.

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Speaker 1: Oh yes, so you mentioned the Fermi paradox and the

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Speaker 1: Drake equation. What do you think are the most important

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Speaker 1: fundamentals for listeners or just like the alien curious, alien

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Speaker 1: optimists or skeptics out there to take home concerning these

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Speaker 1: two properties.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question, rob because the point here

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Speaker 2: is that whether you are into UFOs or not into UFOs,

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Speaker 2: if you have if you want to think about life

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Speaker 2: in the universe at all, you And that's why, you

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Speaker 2: know why I lay out this history in the book

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Speaker 2: in this short fun chapters. You know, it is literally

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Speaker 2: a little book of aliens, because I wanted people and

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Speaker 2: easy to have an easy way in and out. For this,

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Speaker 2: you have to deal with the Fermi paradox and the

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Speaker 2: Drake equation. So let's deal with Let's think about the

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Speaker 2: Fermi paradox first. The Fermi paradox just asked the question

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Speaker 2: if life is common, particularly intelligent life, then why aren't

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Speaker 2: they everywhere? Right? And that can take two forms. One

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Speaker 2: is why aren't they here now? Right? But FORMI recognize

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Speaker 2: very quickly he's he kind of did the calculation in

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Speaker 2: his head and saw that a spacefaring race, even if

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Speaker 2: it's going at it can only go at a tenth

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Speaker 2: of the speed of light, which we believe is the

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Speaker 2: limit for any and nothing can travel faster than light.

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Speaker 2: That you would cross the galaxy and you could hop

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Speaker 2: from star system to star system in a time that's

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Speaker 2: very short compared to the age of the galaxy. Long

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Speaker 2: for us, it's on the order of six hundred thousand years.

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Speaker 2: But in terms of the galaxy, the galaxy should be

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Speaker 2: entirely populated. So one way of interpreting that is why

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Speaker 2: aren't they here now? Right? And so there's various answers

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Speaker 2: to that. But there's an indirect version of that, which

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Speaker 2: is more important because people often have this feeling that, oh,

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Speaker 2: every night, astronomers like take their telescopes and look at

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Speaker 2: the sky searching for evidence of alien intelligences, right, and

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Speaker 2: nothing could be further from the truth. Right. That's a

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Speaker 2: version what I call that the indirect Fermi paradoxes. Well,

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Speaker 2: We've looked and we haven't found But as I've said,

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Speaker 2: because of the giggle factor, we haven't looked, right, We

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Speaker 2: just we have not done those searches. There's never been

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Speaker 2: any money funding to use telescopes to do that. So

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Speaker 2: Jason Wright and colleagues did a study where they showed

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Speaker 2: that if the sky was like the ocean, how much

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Speaker 2: of the ocean have we searched and you know, and

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Speaker 2: aliens were fish, how much of the ocean have we

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Speaker 2: searched for? And answer is a hot tub? Right, that's

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Speaker 2: how all you take all the steady searches and you

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Speaker 2: combine them, and we've basically looked at a hot tubs

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Speaker 2: worth of ocean. Now, if you looked at a hot

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Speaker 2: tubs worth of water and didn't find any fish, would

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Speaker 2: you then say, up, there's no fish in the ocean.

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Speaker 2: So the answer is we just haven't looked. But we

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Speaker 2: are looking now, Like finally there's funding, right, Finally there's

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Speaker 2: there's a community of scientists with the backing of you know,

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Speaker 2: the government science agencies to really start this search for life.

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Speaker 2: Whether it's whether it's again dumb life or smart life,

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Speaker 2: it doesn't matter. We're finally we finally know where to look.

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Speaker 2: We finally know how to look, and we're looking. So

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Speaker 2: that's the Fermi paradox, the Drake equation. What's important about

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Speaker 2: it was in nineteen sixty after doing this his first search,

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Speaker 2: he was asked by the Government of all People to

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Speaker 2: lead a workshop on interstellar communications. And so they brought

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Speaker 2: together a few people, the eight or nine researchers. And

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Speaker 2: what Drake needed to do he needed an agenda for

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Speaker 2: the meeting, like what do we even talk about? And

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Speaker 2: what he did is he took the problem the question

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Speaker 2: is how many intelligence civilizations are there in the galaxy?

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Speaker 2: And he broke it up into seven sub problems, which

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Speaker 2: when you multiplied their answer together, you'd get the answer

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Speaker 2: to the big question. And it turned out that those

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Speaker 2: sub problems became so famous because he offered people a

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Speaker 2: way of breaking this big problem up into smaller problems

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Speaker 2: that you could actually do research on. For example, the

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Speaker 2: first sub problem is how many stars are there? Right,

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Speaker 2: that's the first thing you want to know, and we

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Speaker 2: already he already knew that, right. The second sub problem

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Speaker 2: was how many planets are there? Or what's the fraction

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Speaker 2: of stars with planets at the time, nobody knew what

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Speaker 2: that was. It could have been that the universe was barren.

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Speaker 2: You know, that our solar system was a freak and

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Speaker 2: most stars don't have planets. And now we've answered that

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Speaker 2: question thanks to the Drake equation, and people said, like, oh,

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Speaker 2: that's the next question we need to answer. We now

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Speaker 2: know that every star in the sky hosts a family

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Speaker 2: of worlds. That is that's one of the that happened

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Speaker 2: in the nineties, the beginning of the nineties, and that

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Speaker 2: was the beginning of this change. Right. That was a

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Speaker 2: massive revolution in astrobiology because it told us that the

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Speaker 2: place where life forms, which is planets, those are common,

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Speaker 2: those are as cheap as dirt. And then the next

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Speaker 2: term in the Drake equation was for every star that

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Speaker 2: has planets, how many planets are in the right place

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Speaker 2: for life to form, which we think has to do

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Speaker 2: with liquid water on the surface. What's the what's the

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Speaker 2: you know, how many are in this this Goldilocks ban

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Speaker 2: of orbits where it's not too hot, not too cold,

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Speaker 2: so you can have liquid water on the surface. And

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Speaker 2: the answer for that is one in five. So go

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Speaker 2: outside tonight, look up at the night sky. Every star

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Speaker 2: you see has has worlds orbiting it, and every five

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Speaker 2: of those has a planet that's sitting there where the

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Speaker 2: experiment with life and civilizations even is being run by

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Speaker 2: the universe.

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Speaker 1: So getting into what we're looking for, I thought, we

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Speaker 1: thought we might ask about techno signatures and biosignatures in

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Speaker 1: what In twenty nineteen you became principal investigator on NASA's

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Speaker 1: first grant to study techno signatures. So what are they

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Speaker 1: and how are we looking for them? And what have

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Speaker 1: we found?

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Speaker 2: Yes, So the amazing thing about these revolutions, so the

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Speaker 2: exoplanet revolution, as I call it, and started in nineteen

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Speaker 2: ninety five when we discovered our first planet. By within

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Speaker 2: another ten or twenty years or so, we had figured

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Speaker 2: out how to look into the atmospheres of those planets.

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Speaker 2: And what happens is, you know, we detect planets as

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Speaker 2: they when they orbit in front of their star. It's

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Speaker 2: like a little tiny eclipse. The planet passes in front

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Speaker 2: of the star and blocks the light. But if the

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Speaker 2: planet has an atmosphere, there's a little while when the

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Speaker 2: light from the star passes through the atmosphere and reaches us.

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Speaker 2: And when that happens, it leaves an imprint. There's some

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Speaker 2: of the light is absorbed by chemicals, compounds, molecules in

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Speaker 2: the atmosphere, and we can use that. Every one of

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Speaker 2: those imprints is like a fingerprint of what's in that atmosphere.

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Speaker 2: So we call that atmospheric characterization. And so what's in

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Speaker 2: that imprint it potentially are signatures of things like a biosphere. Right,

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Speaker 2: so the Earth has a biosphere. It's the sum total

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Speaker 2: of all the life on the planet, all the plants,

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Speaker 2: all the planktin. It leaves a giant imprint in the

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Speaker 2: light from Earth, and the same thing can happen in

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Speaker 2: an alien world. So a biosignature would be something like

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Speaker 2: oxygen right on Earth. The only reason oxygen is in

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Speaker 2: the atmosphere is because life puts it there. If life

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Speaker 2: goes away, the oxygen goes away very quickly. So if

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Speaker 2: you discover oxygen on a in an alien world, that's

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Speaker 2: a good shot that that planet has life a robust biosphere.

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Speaker 2: So oxygen dimethyl sulfide, that is a chemical which is

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Speaker 2: in Earth's atmosphere. It's only there because all the plankton

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Speaker 2: are kind of farting it out there. So we have

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Speaker 2: a whole long list and that we're we're generating more

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Speaker 2: and more lists of biosignatures which if we detect them,

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Speaker 2: that will be and that will be evidence that there's

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Speaker 2: life on that planet. Techno signatures this is this is

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Speaker 2: a newer field. And as you say, I'm the principal

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Speaker 2: investigator on the first time NASA was willing to fund

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Speaker 2: the search for intelligent life. Last NASA been funding the

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Speaker 2: search for dumb life for a while, but because of

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Speaker 2: that giggle factor, techno signatures or you know, intelligent life

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Speaker 2: was not on the list. Now it is. So the

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Speaker 2: group I'm part of we are looking for we're designing,

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Speaker 2: we're coming up with the list of possible techno signatures.

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Speaker 2: So one, what are they? One, we just wrote a

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Speaker 2: paper on this. Chemicals, industrial chemicals, So for example, chlorofluorocarbons

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Speaker 2: or CFCs. These are the things that you know, we

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Speaker 2: were using in air conditioners that got pumped into the

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Speaker 2: atmosphere and we're destroying the ozone hole, right. Those things actually,

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Speaker 2: so either by pollution or if you were trying to

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Speaker 2: terraform mars, you would purposely pump them into an atmosphere

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Speaker 2: because they're great greenhouse gases. Actually, so we showed that

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Speaker 2: even with the James Web Space Telescope, you could detect

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Speaker 2: chloroflora carbons in the atmosphere of a world that was

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Speaker 2: forty light years away and if it had levels close

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Speaker 2: to our level even now. So those that's if we

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Speaker 2: and chloroflora carbons cannot be there is just no way

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Speaker 2: nature produces them. They're too complex and weird. Or so

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Speaker 2: discover those you've discovered there's a technological civilization there on

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Speaker 2: that planet. If you discovered those in a planet's atmosphere,

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Speaker 2: city lights, if you know, if a civilization is using

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Speaker 2: artificial illumination, we may be able to detect the spectral signature,

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Speaker 2: the signature in light of those cities. The large scale

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Speaker 2: use of solar panels, you would be able to see

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Speaker 2: the reflectants, all that light bouncing off the solar panels,

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Speaker 2: you'd be able to see. And the list goes on

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Speaker 2: and on. We may be able to detect if you

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Speaker 2: have a lot of satellites in orbit, in geosynchronous orbit,

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Speaker 2: you might be able to detect They call that the

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Speaker 2: Clark Belt after Arthur C. Clark. You might be able

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Speaker 2: to detect that. So you know, the list goes on

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Speaker 2: and these we're figuring out now exactly how to look

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Speaker 2: for those, so once people start doing these observations, they'll

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Speaker 2: be able to they'll be able to know exactly where

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Speaker 2: to look. So it's amazing we actually have the technology

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Speaker 2: now so that over the next ten years, twenty years,

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Speaker 2: thirty years, we're going to have actual data relevant to

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Speaker 2: the question, whereas the last two than five hundred years

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Speaker 2: have been people yelling at each other or burning each

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Speaker 2: other at the stake.

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Speaker 1: It's I think it's fascinating that with the techno signatures,

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Speaker 1: you're talking about things that have a lot more nuance

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Speaker 1: to them, I guess arguably compared to what might pop

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Speaker 1: into a lot of sci fi viewers' heads, not being

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Speaker 1: something like a Dyson sphere or a diceent cloud something

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Speaker 1: they've seen on Star Trek.

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Speaker 2: And so right, yeah, you know, the Dyson sphere is

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Speaker 2: still ongoing though there's still people looking for, you know,

428
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Speaker 2: alien mega structures. Who doesn't love saying alien megastructure. That's

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Speaker 2: still an ongoing concern. And you know, with one of

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Speaker 2: the important pieces of the history that I talk about

431
00:22:33,040 --> 00:22:37,160
Speaker 2: in the book is boujoyan star or Tabby Star people

432
00:22:37,160 --> 00:22:40,520
Speaker 2: called him, and this was a. This was a star

433
00:22:40,600 --> 00:22:44,000
Speaker 2: we were looking at with you know, the Kepler space telescope,

434
00:22:44,040 --> 00:22:46,960
Speaker 2: which is a planet finder, and rather than the sort

435
00:22:46,960 --> 00:22:49,879
Speaker 2: of smooth the clips that we expect when a planet

436
00:22:49,920 --> 00:22:52,720
Speaker 2: passes in front of the star, what they were seeing

437
00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:55,240
Speaker 2: signals of like they couldn't understand it. It was like

438
00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:57,159
Speaker 2: the light from the star was blotting out and then

439
00:22:57,200 --> 00:23:00,240
Speaker 2: coming back and then blotting out again, blotting, blotting, not thing.

440
00:23:01,160 --> 00:23:03,879
Speaker 2: And for you know, so when people were thinking about this,

441
00:23:03,920 --> 00:23:07,000
Speaker 2: they made their list of possible you know what this

442
00:23:07,240 --> 00:23:11,959
Speaker 2: was comets, clouds of dust, broken up planets, and at

443
00:23:11,960 --> 00:23:16,800
Speaker 2: the bottom list was alien megastructures. And that was twenty fourteen,

444
00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:20,840
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen. That blew the doors off of the old

445
00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:23,280
Speaker 2: The fact that they even mentioned this in the paper

446
00:23:23,560 --> 00:23:25,359
Speaker 2: and that everyone was like, oh, yeah, okay, it could

447
00:23:25,359 --> 00:23:28,000
Speaker 2: be kind of signaled that, you know, if you're doing

448
00:23:28,080 --> 00:23:31,359
Speaker 2: this work, you can't laugh, you can't giggle about that

449
00:23:31,480 --> 00:23:35,480
Speaker 2: possibility anymore. If you're going to stare at hundreds thousands

450
00:23:35,560 --> 00:23:40,560
Speaker 2: of planets and you know, look for biosignatures, you can't

451
00:23:40,600 --> 00:23:42,760
Speaker 2: ignore the possibility of that some of these are going

452
00:23:42,840 --> 00:23:45,280
Speaker 2: to have techno signatures. So that was really that was

453
00:23:45,320 --> 00:23:49,960
Speaker 2: an art an apocryphal moment in this study where people

454
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:53,399
Speaker 2: were finally, you know, the giggle factor had was gone,

455
00:23:53,680 --> 00:23:56,280
Speaker 2: and it's like, yeah, sure, okay, that's one of the

456
00:23:56,320 --> 00:23:58,399
Speaker 2: things we have to consider. It's probably last on the

457
00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:01,600
Speaker 2: list because you want to consider things you already know exist,

458
00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:05,200
Speaker 2: but it's there, and then you know, at some point

459
00:24:05,240 --> 00:24:08,399
Speaker 2: we may have a planet where you really are going

460
00:24:08,480 --> 00:24:09,360
Speaker 2: to take that seriously.

461
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:12,000
Speaker 1: Now, I of course have to to ask you about

462
00:24:12,040 --> 00:24:16,840
Speaker 1: the various alleged UFO evidence and the recent congressional hearings

463
00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:20,080
Speaker 1: on UFOs or UAPs. Do you feel like this had

464
00:24:20,080 --> 00:24:23,639
Speaker 1: an impact on like the average person's interest in or

465
00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:27,600
Speaker 1: willingness to, you know, give credence to UFO reports or

466
00:24:27,640 --> 00:24:30,399
Speaker 1: to give credence to the possibility of alien life. And

467
00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:34,479
Speaker 1: how should we logically consider the current state of UFO

468
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:36,400
Speaker 1: UAP evidence or lack thereof.

469
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:41,480
Speaker 2: Yes. So that's the reason why about a third of

470
00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:44,120
Speaker 2: the book is about UFOs and UAPs, because I really

471
00:24:44,160 --> 00:24:48,240
Speaker 2: wanted people to understand how science sees them, how scientists

472
00:24:48,280 --> 00:24:50,800
Speaker 2: see them. Because, of course, as you say, because of

473
00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:54,520
Speaker 2: pop culture, right, the UFOs have they they you know,

474
00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:57,640
Speaker 2: the alien invasion happened in the fifties and they won.

475
00:24:58,520 --> 00:25:01,399
Speaker 2: They live in our heads, you know, in many ways.

476
00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:06,480
Speaker 2: For me, the prevalence of UAPs and UFOs now is

477
00:25:06,520 --> 00:25:08,600
Speaker 2: actually because of what's been happening with the science right

478
00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:11,600
Speaker 2: since the nineteen nineties. Every week there's a new story

479
00:25:11,640 --> 00:25:15,160
Speaker 2: earth like planet found orbiting other stars. The fact that

480
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:19,280
Speaker 2: scientists have been so clearly been willing to take the

481
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:23,800
Speaker 2: search for life seriously on alien worlds, I think helped

482
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:27,000
Speaker 2: in some way smooth the ground for this, you know,

483
00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:31,800
Speaker 2: explosion of interest in UAPs and the whole I document

484
00:25:31,840 --> 00:25:34,760
Speaker 2: both the history of you know, UAP or UFOs going

485
00:25:34,800 --> 00:25:37,560
Speaker 2: back to nineteen forty seven, the first the first sighting,

486
00:25:37,560 --> 00:25:39,639
Speaker 2: and people really need to know that because that shapes

487
00:25:39,680 --> 00:25:42,439
Speaker 2: a lot of UFO culture to what's happening now. With

488
00:25:42,520 --> 00:25:45,480
Speaker 2: that twenty seventeen New York Times article, right, that's what

489
00:25:45,560 --> 00:25:48,359
Speaker 2: blew everything out of the water, with those three videos

490
00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:51,920
Speaker 2: which have been you know, cycle endlessly over and over again,

491
00:25:51,960 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 2: and people sort of think there's lots of videos, there's

492
00:25:53,840 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 2: really only those three. But the important thing is, I

493
00:25:57,080 --> 00:26:00,280
Speaker 2: think that for people to understand where we're at right

494
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:02,919
Speaker 2: and where we're going, and that's what I try and

495
00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:06,080
Speaker 2: give people in the book. So the first thing is

496
00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:10,159
Speaker 2: that absolutely, for a scientists, there is no evidence, not

497
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:14,560
Speaker 2: even close, that would link anything about UFOs or UAPs

498
00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 2: to alien life to something non human. Right, and you

499
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:20,080
Speaker 2: actually and that's why I wanted people to you know,

500
00:26:20,080 --> 00:26:22,680
Speaker 2: if you actually look even what has happened since twenty seventeen,

501
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:29,000
Speaker 2: that this that conclusion holds. You know, scientists are brutal.

502
00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:31,639
Speaker 2: We're really really mean to each other. You know about

503
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:35,480
Speaker 2: like trying to link a piece of data to a claim, right,

504
00:26:35,880 --> 00:26:38,520
Speaker 2: and where we are brutal and nasty to each other,

505
00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:41,600
Speaker 2: because that is how we can ensure that we're correct.

506
00:26:41,880 --> 00:26:44,240
Speaker 2: If we weren't brutal and nasty to each other, you

507
00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:47,600
Speaker 2: and I wouldn't be using these amazing technologies, right, you know,

508
00:26:47,920 --> 00:26:53,879
Speaker 2: quantum mechanics, electronics, you know, electromagnetism, all the technology, all

509
00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:56,000
Speaker 2: the science that goes into the technology you and I

510
00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 2: are using right now was because scientists are so mean

511
00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:01,960
Speaker 2: to each other. And the day for UFOs and UAPs

512
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:05,520
Speaker 2: just isn't even close to that. It's either blurry photographs,

513
00:27:05,960 --> 00:27:08,480
Speaker 2: which haven't changed over seventy years, right, I mean, there's

514
00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:12,960
Speaker 2: still blurry photographs come on or personal testimony and personal testimony,

515
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:14,960
Speaker 2: it's it's not much science can do with that. So

516
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:18,360
Speaker 2: I think it's great that the pilots feel that they

517
00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:20,560
Speaker 2: you know, pilots have the freedom to report what they're

518
00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:22,960
Speaker 2: seeing because you know, they are seeing something. The question

519
00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:25,280
Speaker 2: is what are they seeing? So like Ryan Graves, you know,

520
00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:27,280
Speaker 2: he's one of the pilots who's involved with this, and

521
00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 2: I was on his podcast. You know, I've had some

522
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:33,280
Speaker 2: really great conversations. So that's great, And I'm all for

523
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:38,400
Speaker 2: an open, transparent, you know, investigation by like they'd say,

524
00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:42,840
Speaker 2: the NASA panel or Project Galileo. It's for to investigate this,

525
00:27:43,119 --> 00:27:46,640
Speaker 2: right and let's just let's go where the data leads us.

526
00:27:47,560 --> 00:27:50,200
Speaker 2: But as of right now, that data does not lead

527
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:53,600
Speaker 2: us anywhere that would point to extraterrestrial So, for example,

528
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:57,160
Speaker 2: at the nat so, the NASA panel held a hearing

529
00:27:57,400 --> 00:27:59,679
Speaker 2: and you know, they were talking about their results and

530
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:02,720
Speaker 2: the result of some of the other agencies, and you know,

531
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:04,320
Speaker 2: one of the things that was talked about there was,

532
00:28:04,640 --> 00:28:07,480
Speaker 2: you know, of the of the thousand or eight hundred

533
00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:10,520
Speaker 2: or so sightings, including those you know from the military

534
00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:14,160
Speaker 2: that the government has and announced in that famous report

535
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:18,080
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one, only six percent couldn't be explained right,

536
00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:21,840
Speaker 2: only six percent right, which means that the sky the

537
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:24,840
Speaker 2: other ninety four percent had reasonable explanations. The sky is

538
00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:28,679
Speaker 2: not full of unexplainable stuff, which you know, the hype

539
00:28:28,760 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 2: around UFOs and UAPs makes it seem like, oh my god.

540
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:34,679
Speaker 2: And then even that six percent, you know, some of

541
00:28:34,680 --> 00:28:36,880
Speaker 2: those are unexplained because you don't even have you can't

542
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:40,160
Speaker 2: even begin to make an explanation. Now. I will note, though,

543
00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:42,680
Speaker 2: and I talk about this in the book, that some

544
00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:45,720
Speaker 2: of the ones in the unexplained category are truly when

545
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:48,600
Speaker 2: you hear the stories, you know are truly freaky deeky

546
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:50,840
Speaker 2: right in the sense like a ghost story, it raises

547
00:28:50,880 --> 00:28:54,200
Speaker 2: the hair on the back of your neck. But until

548
00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 2: you do the research, you know those ones are probably

549
00:28:57,720 --> 00:28:59,800
Speaker 2: we'll see, we'll just see where those go. But the

550
00:29:00,280 --> 00:29:05,680
Speaker 2: is the vast overwhelming majority are either explainable or don't

551
00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:08,480
Speaker 2: have enough data to explain, with a tiny minority that

552
00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:10,920
Speaker 2: are like, wow, okay, that's interesting and then we're just

553
00:29:10,920 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 2: going to have to do the rea. But again, that's

554
00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:15,880
Speaker 2: so even with that category, that's not a place that

555
00:29:15,960 --> 00:29:18,320
Speaker 2: you're or that's not enough to be make this jump

556
00:29:18,320 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 2: to this enormous conclusion that that that aliens are visiting

557
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 2: us because you know, again, you need this very solid

558
00:29:26,760 --> 00:29:30,360
Speaker 2: data chain, not just personal testimony, not that somebody said, oh,

559
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:33,360
Speaker 2: the radar operator said it was moving at this speed.

560
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:35,440
Speaker 2: I need to see the instrument. I need to know

561
00:29:35,600 --> 00:29:37,720
Speaker 2: how that instrument was built. I need to know every

562
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:39,920
Speaker 2: just like I would with the James Webspace telescope.

563
00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:45,680
Speaker 1: So how well prepared are we culturally and or institutionally

564
00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:51,240
Speaker 1: to either you know, have that glimpse of of of

565
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 1: some distant world where there's a strong possibility that what

566
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 1: we're looking at is you know, anything ranging from a

567
00:29:57,440 --> 00:30:00,840
Speaker 1: techno signature that we can put stock in, or some

568
00:30:00,880 --> 00:30:04,680
Speaker 1: sort of a megastructure, or even on the other end

569
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:08,640
Speaker 1: of the spectrum, like actual first contact. Like how prepared

570
00:30:08,720 --> 00:30:10,600
Speaker 1: are we for those possibilities.

571
00:30:11,080 --> 00:30:16,200
Speaker 2: I believe that it will be the most profound discovery

572
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:20,440
Speaker 2: in human history. It will it will reshape our understanding.

573
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:23,400
Speaker 2: And again, I don't care if we even if we

574
00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:27,360
Speaker 2: find dumb life, even if we detect a planet and

575
00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:29,160
Speaker 2: you know, through its study, find that it's got a

576
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:33,320
Speaker 2: biosphere that is equally it doesn't have to be a civilization, right,

577
00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:36,760
Speaker 2: And the reason for that is life is so bizarre

578
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:39,520
Speaker 2: compared to every other physical system. So I'm involved. I

579
00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 2: have a part of a project from actually the PI

580
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:43,880
Speaker 2: on this other study where we're also just looking at

581
00:30:43,920 --> 00:30:46,480
Speaker 2: the physics of life. We're trying to answer why is

582
00:30:46,560 --> 00:30:49,520
Speaker 2: life so different from every other physical system? Right? So

583
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 2: for example, you know, black holes are weird, black holes

584
00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 2: are crazy, right, But a black hole will never invent

585
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:58,040
Speaker 2: a giant rabbit that can punch you in the face,

586
00:30:58,080 --> 00:31:01,400
Speaker 2: which is a kangaroo. Right. Only evolution does that. Life

587
00:31:01,680 --> 00:31:06,360
Speaker 2: is the only physical system which invents, which creates, which innovates,

588
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:09,280
Speaker 2: And right now, as far as we know, we're the

589
00:31:09,320 --> 00:31:12,160
Speaker 2: only example of life in the entire universe. Like, you know,

590
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:14,680
Speaker 2: are we a one off? Are we an accident? Are

591
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:17,760
Speaker 2: we a mistake? Or is life with all of its

592
00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:22,600
Speaker 2: creative capacity common? Because even if it's just life, even

593
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:24,600
Speaker 2: if it's just microbes, it means that we're part of

594
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 2: a community, a cosmic community of life. And because of

595
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 2: life's innovative capacities, who knows, you know, if it's if

596
00:31:32,480 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 2: life is common, who knows where it's gone. I don't

597
00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:37,360
Speaker 2: need to find an alien civilization. I just need to

598
00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:39,480
Speaker 2: find a microbe because then I know that evolution is

599
00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:43,120
Speaker 2: something that the universe does more than just here, and

600
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:48,160
Speaker 2: evolution is unbounded. Evolution can do anything. So I don't

601
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 2: think we would have riots in the street, you know,

602
00:31:50,520 --> 00:31:52,200
Speaker 2: I don't think that's going to be necessary. But I

603
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:56,280
Speaker 2: do think you know, if people want an example, the

604
00:31:56,280 --> 00:32:00,880
Speaker 2: Copernican Revolution, right, you know, in fortune hundred, you went

605
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:02,800
Speaker 2: to bed and you were like, oh, the sun's going

606
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:05,080
Speaker 2: to rise tomorrow because the Earth is the center of

607
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:07,680
Speaker 2: the universe and the sun goes around the Earth. And

608
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:09,480
Speaker 2: then two hundred years later you went to bed and

609
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:12,080
Speaker 2: you're like, oh, the sun doesn't come up. The horizon

610
00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:14,760
Speaker 2: goes down because the Earth is spinning as it goes

611
00:32:14,800 --> 00:32:18,800
Speaker 2: around the Sun. And that was just an astronomical discovery.

612
00:32:18,840 --> 00:32:25,920
Speaker 2: And yet the Copernican Revolution figures in the Renaissance, the Enlightenment,

613
00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:30,400
Speaker 2: the Protestant Reformation. It was, you know, it was a

614
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:35,880
Speaker 2: game changer. It actually rewired how all of humanity understood

615
00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:38,920
Speaker 2: itself and what was possible. So you know, these astronomical

616
00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 2: discoveries don't just sit out there in some egghead's brain.

617
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:45,600
Speaker 2: You know, they matter, and they always have mattered. So

618
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:48,520
Speaker 2: finding life in the universe one way or the other

619
00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:52,440
Speaker 2: would change everything. Finding a civilization would that Now that outright,

620
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:55,000
Speaker 2: that takes us even further. And I think the most

621
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:57,320
Speaker 2: important thing there is, you know, we are so horrible

622
00:32:57,320 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 2: to each other. We're such a messed up species. And

623
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:02,840
Speaker 2: though we're capable of so much, and it's not clear

624
00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:05,800
Speaker 2: whether or not, through nuclear war, climate change, or AI,

625
00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:07,760
Speaker 2: whether we're going to still be around in one hundred

626
00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:11,360
Speaker 2: years or five hundred years. Finding a civilization, as I

627
00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 2: discussed in the book, because we did research on this,

628
00:33:13,800 --> 00:33:16,360
Speaker 2: would mean we would Finding a civilization means finding an

629
00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 2: older civilization. That's what the probability tells you. Anything you

630
00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:22,920
Speaker 2: find will be older, and that means somebody made it right.

631
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:24,960
Speaker 2: It would be It would be like an existence proof

632
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:28,640
Speaker 2: that long lived civilizations are possible, and without we don't

633
00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:30,400
Speaker 2: have to have contact with them, we don't have to

634
00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 2: talk to them. Just knowing they were there would be

635
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:36,080
Speaker 2: proof that, yeah, you know what, it's possible to get

636
00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:40,760
Speaker 2: through all of that evolutionary baggage and you know, make

637
00:33:40,840 --> 00:33:42,080
Speaker 2: it last for a long time.

638
00:33:42,600 --> 00:33:44,520
Speaker 1: That's a wonderful way of looking at it. I don't

639
00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:48,000
Speaker 1: think I quite thought about that spin on it before. Now,

640
00:33:48,040 --> 00:33:49,640
Speaker 1: another thing you talk about in the book I wanted

641
00:33:49,640 --> 00:33:52,719
Speaker 1: to ask you about here is getting beyond sort of

642
00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:57,280
Speaker 1: the mirror image idea of what alien life consists of.

643
00:33:57,520 --> 00:34:00,760
Speaker 1: You know, it could be because as everyone always discusses,

644
00:34:00,840 --> 00:34:04,240
Speaker 1: like life on Earth and our model of intelligent life

645
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:06,960
Speaker 1: is the only model we have when considering what might

646
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:09,880
Speaker 1: be out there. But what else is possible?

647
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:13,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, the most fun parts of the book for me

648
00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:16,640
Speaker 2: were the last you know, third or so, where I

649
00:34:16,640 --> 00:34:19,600
Speaker 2: started asking, you know, using what we understand with the

650
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:22,759
Speaker 2: science we have, what might aliens look like and what

651
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:25,520
Speaker 2: might they be like? So the first part of that

652
00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:28,920
Speaker 2: is understanding how evolution works. Right, So we know the

653
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:31,719
Speaker 2: laws of physics and chemistry are universal, they're going to

654
00:34:31,840 --> 00:34:36,400
Speaker 2: occur anywhere, and we also Darwinian evolution is really a logic.

655
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:39,760
Speaker 2: It's a logic that anything we'd want to call alive

656
00:34:40,600 --> 00:34:42,759
Speaker 2: probably has to follow. So that means you can use

657
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:45,640
Speaker 2: those as kind of guide rails. You know, remember when

658
00:34:45,680 --> 00:34:47,360
Speaker 2: you were bowling when you were a little kid and

659
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:49,839
Speaker 2: had those bumper rails that kept your ball. That's what

660
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:52,920
Speaker 2: science is, right, Science is constrained imagination. You want to

661
00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:55,000
Speaker 2: use your imagination, but you also don't want to just

662
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:57,719
Speaker 2: write science fiction story, so you can use those three

663
00:34:57,719 --> 00:35:01,000
Speaker 2: principles physics, chemistry and Darwinian evolution. And the cool thing

664
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:02,759
Speaker 2: about that is is you see an evolution there are

665
00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:06,320
Speaker 2: two forces. There's convergence. Physics and chemistry is going to

666
00:35:06,360 --> 00:35:08,360
Speaker 2: give life problems. How do you move around? How do

667
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:10,239
Speaker 2: you find food? You know? Are you on a are

668
00:35:10,239 --> 00:35:12,200
Speaker 2: you in a water world? Are you you know? Are

669
00:35:12,200 --> 00:35:14,239
Speaker 2: you in a world that has a surface and then

670
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:18,000
Speaker 2: an atmosphere. Evolution will probably find the same kinds of

671
00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:22,560
Speaker 2: solutions to those problems, like, for example, wings right. If

672
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:26,080
Speaker 2: you have an atmosphere, then you know, passing air over

673
00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:28,920
Speaker 2: a curved surface great way to get around, right wings.

674
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:32,000
Speaker 2: But it doesn't mean the wings look will look anything

675
00:35:32,280 --> 00:35:34,839
Speaker 2: like what has happened here. Could be like some kind

676
00:35:34,840 --> 00:35:38,200
Speaker 2: of weird bony frame with like mucus, a gooey mucus,

677
00:35:38,239 --> 00:35:39,879
Speaker 2: you know, in between them. That was just something I

678
00:35:39,960 --> 00:35:44,160
Speaker 2: have to think of some ideas. So, but evolution also

679
00:35:44,239 --> 00:35:49,120
Speaker 2: works by accidents, like a trillion accidents. So this battle

680
00:35:49,160 --> 00:35:52,560
Speaker 2: between accidents and sort of the the you know physics

681
00:35:52,560 --> 00:35:56,600
Speaker 2: and chemistry means that you know, legs well, you should

682
00:35:56,640 --> 00:35:59,719
Speaker 2: expect to find legs being you know, evolved in lots

683
00:35:59,719 --> 00:36:02,279
Speaker 2: of plays, but don't expect them to look anything like

684
00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:04,600
Speaker 2: what we have here. And in fact, accidents are so

685
00:36:04,640 --> 00:36:08,759
Speaker 2: important that Stephen J. Gould, the great evolutionary biologist, said

686
00:36:08,760 --> 00:36:11,760
Speaker 2: that if you rewind the tape of life on Earth

687
00:36:12,080 --> 00:36:14,600
Speaker 2: and allowed it to start over again, you wouldn't have

688
00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:17,360
Speaker 2: any species of the kind that we have today. Everything

689
00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:20,279
Speaker 2: would be different. And this leads to a startling conclusion,

690
00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:23,120
Speaker 2: which is that in spite of Star Trek and in

691
00:36:23,120 --> 00:36:27,319
Speaker 2: spite of Star Wars, we are the only humans in

692
00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:30,640
Speaker 2: the entire universe. We are the only humanoids in the

693
00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:33,480
Speaker 2: entire universe. So we should not expect to find, you know,

694
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:37,000
Speaker 2: little grays, little green men. You know, the idea of

695
00:36:37,040 --> 00:36:40,279
Speaker 2: a head on top of shoulders, with two arms and

696
00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:42,920
Speaker 2: two legs, you know, maybe with an antenna on the forehead.

697
00:36:43,120 --> 00:36:45,799
Speaker 2: You know, I talk about the whole idea of prosthetic foreheads,

698
00:36:46,120 --> 00:36:50,000
Speaker 2: in the prevalence of prosthetic foreheads in sci fi. That's

699
00:36:50,200 --> 00:36:52,480
Speaker 2: just not going to happen, you know, the odds are

700
00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:55,319
Speaker 2: you know, it's pretty remote. So when we think about

701
00:36:55,360 --> 00:36:57,800
Speaker 2: life in the universe, we should expect to be surprised,

702
00:36:58,160 --> 00:37:01,600
Speaker 2: and we might also expect to be grossed out by

703
00:37:01,640 --> 00:37:04,080
Speaker 2: what we find. So that's the first point, and then

704
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:07,839
Speaker 2: we can talk about alien ethics and alien minds. There's

705
00:37:07,880 --> 00:37:10,320
Speaker 2: always this idea that, oh, you know, we're gonna be

706
00:37:10,320 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 2: able to figure out a way to communicate because they'll,

707
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:14,600
Speaker 2: you know, like Carl Sagan thought, oh well, we'll teach

708
00:37:14,640 --> 00:37:18,200
Speaker 2: them our math and then we'll translate our math to

709
00:37:18,239 --> 00:37:20,120
Speaker 2: their math, and that will be the beginning, you know.

710
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:22,799
Speaker 2: And then very soon after you know, figuring out that

711
00:37:23,280 --> 00:37:26,000
Speaker 2: pie you know is involved with circles, we'll be sharing

712
00:37:26,080 --> 00:37:29,359
Speaker 2: knock knock jokes and cures for cancer. But that may

713
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:31,160
Speaker 2: not be possible at all. And my favor one of

714
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:34,520
Speaker 2: my favorite science fiction movies is a Rival, right with

715
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:36,880
Speaker 2: that great you know, they send in aliens arrived, They

716
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:39,520
Speaker 2: send in a Carl Sagan kind of character and a linguist,

717
00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:42,120
Speaker 2: and the Carl Sagan character, with his you know, using

718
00:37:42,160 --> 00:37:47,319
Speaker 2: math to communicate fails spectacularly. And it's the linguist who

719
00:37:47,440 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 2: understands that language is not about mathematics. It's about the

720
00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:53,880
Speaker 2: experience of being in a body and living, and she

721
00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:56,040
Speaker 2: makes contact to find out that they actually have a

722
00:37:56,160 --> 00:37:59,080
Speaker 2: very different kind of physics even they live or experience

723
00:37:59,120 --> 00:38:01,960
Speaker 2: of physics. They live past, present and future at the

724
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:05,600
Speaker 2: same time. So I think, you know, the beautiful part

725
00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:07,879
Speaker 2: about this study, the scientific study, is how we can

726
00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:15,160
Speaker 2: use science to systematically explore or imagine the unimaginable. Right O.

727
00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:17,520
Speaker 2: What we have to do now is get beyond the

728
00:38:17,640 --> 00:38:21,680
Speaker 2: terrestrial and imagine life as we don't know it. And

729
00:38:21,719 --> 00:38:24,759
Speaker 2: there's a bunch of different projects by different people. You know,

730
00:38:24,760 --> 00:38:27,160
Speaker 2: we're trying to do this in our own project, but

731
00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:30,239
Speaker 2: to really break past the boundaries of Earth life. And

732
00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:33,320
Speaker 2: that's really exciting because you know, it's great to go

733
00:38:33,440 --> 00:38:35,960
Speaker 2: places where you know, you want to be surprised. The

734
00:38:36,040 --> 00:38:38,040
Speaker 2: universe is much more imaginative than we are.

735
00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:40,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, And of course I can't help but think of

736
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:43,759
Speaker 1: various sci fi visions we've had they try and get

737
00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:47,040
Speaker 1: into this, like the differences and in what a potential

738
00:38:47,080 --> 00:38:50,640
Speaker 1: extraterrestrial civilization could want compared to us. And I guess

739
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:54,359
Speaker 1: like this more basic, sort of Twilight Zone era version

740
00:38:54,400 --> 00:38:57,760
Speaker 1: of this is like, well, we we want to explore

741
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:00,520
Speaker 1: and they want to eat us, right, But you know, the.

742
00:39:00,480 --> 00:39:05,120
Speaker 2: More a cookbook that's a Cookbook's episode. Ever, it's still

743
00:39:05,400 --> 00:39:06,360
Speaker 2: a waterful episode.

744
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:09,120
Speaker 1: But then you have all these other, you know, visions

745
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:12,800
Speaker 1: I instantly think of, like Iimbanks's culture novels. We're listening

746
00:39:12,800 --> 00:39:16,480
Speaker 1: to the idea of, like it, very advanced civilizations just

747
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:20,480
Speaker 1: ending up with fundamentally different goals and ambitions to the

748
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:23,440
Speaker 1: point where they just like sort of blink out of

749
00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:27,279
Speaker 1: existence and so forth. And yeah, it's I feel like

750
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:31,200
Speaker 1: those kind of examples kind of help us expand our

751
00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:35,640
Speaker 1: horizon on imagining what aliens could want. And then also

752
00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:37,200
Speaker 1: of course just sort of brings us to a limit

753
00:39:37,239 --> 00:39:38,680
Speaker 1: and realize, oh, there are all these other things we

754
00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:40,319
Speaker 1: can't even imagine.

755
00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:41,799
Speaker 2: Right right, And then but that's what's cool is we

756
00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:44,319
Speaker 2: have to then sort of try to imagine them. We

757
00:39:44,400 --> 00:39:46,400
Speaker 2: have to figure out how to work our way like

758
00:39:46,520 --> 00:39:48,560
Speaker 2: because the first so then what that means is and

759
00:39:48,600 --> 00:39:50,560
Speaker 2: this was the fun part of exploring this in the

760
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:53,600
Speaker 2: book and people hopefully you know, will take this journey

761
00:39:53,640 --> 00:39:56,239
Speaker 2: along with us, is you have to sort of the

762
00:39:56,280 --> 00:39:57,719
Speaker 2: first thing you do is figure out, Okay, where am

763
00:39:57,760 --> 00:39:59,960
Speaker 2: I blinded? Right? So the first job is to say,

764
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:02,960
Speaker 2: what are the constraints that I've been operating my where

765
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:04,960
Speaker 2: are my biases? What have I what have I been

766
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 2: blinding myself to identify those, and then you can see like,

767
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:11,279
Speaker 2: oh oh, I got to go around those, you know,

768
00:40:11,400 --> 00:40:14,880
Speaker 2: and begin to work on that. So, uh, you know,

769
00:40:14,960 --> 00:40:17,000
Speaker 2: the science fiction writers. I've always wanted to have a

770
00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:20,640
Speaker 2: meeting between scientists and science fiction writers because I, you know,

771
00:40:20,680 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 2: I'm a I read a lot of science fiction, and

772
00:40:24,760 --> 00:40:26,840
Speaker 2: I find often a lot of my best ideas that

773
00:40:26,880 --> 00:40:30,279
Speaker 2: I want to pursue in research come from you know,

774
00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:34,600
Speaker 2: science fiction writers as storytellers have a kind of imaginative

775
00:40:34,600 --> 00:40:37,239
Speaker 2: capacity that I think we lack in science because of

776
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:39,600
Speaker 2: these biases that we've put on for ourselves. And so

777
00:40:39,800 --> 00:40:41,879
Speaker 2: but then they're systematically doing it right in the sense

778
00:40:41,920 --> 00:40:43,880
Speaker 2: that they have to write a story that has, you know,

779
00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:47,560
Speaker 2: challenges and obstacles, et cetera. So I think that could

780
00:40:47,560 --> 00:40:50,000
Speaker 2: be really fruitful. And that's part of this frontier that

781
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:52,319
Speaker 2: we're on. We're going to look for life, and as

782
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:54,440
Speaker 2: we look for life, we have to look for things

783
00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:57,800
Speaker 2: that are not just replicas of life here on Earth.

784
00:40:58,239 --> 00:41:00,520
Speaker 1: Adam, thanks for coming on the show. This is this

785
00:41:00,560 --> 00:41:02,160
Speaker 1: has been a treat. This is a great way to

786
00:41:02,200 --> 00:41:07,160
Speaker 1: start my Wednesday morning. Here November first, the book, The

787
00:41:07,239 --> 00:41:11,880
Speaker 1: Little Book of Aliens is available in all formats. I

788
00:41:11,920 --> 00:41:14,160
Speaker 1: think it's going to be a great stocking stuff for,

789
00:41:14,600 --> 00:41:17,759
Speaker 1: if you will, for anybody on the spectrum of interest in,

790
00:41:17,880 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 1: or skepticism about, or enthusiasm for alien life.

791
00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:25,880
Speaker 2: Thanks Rob, I really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you for

792
00:41:25,920 --> 00:41:26,480
Speaker 2: having me on.

793
00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:31,080
Speaker 1: Thanks once more to Adam Frank for coming on the

794
00:41:31,120 --> 00:41:34,200
Speaker 1: show again. The book is The Little Book of Aliens,

795
00:41:34,239 --> 00:41:37,600
Speaker 1: available now in all formats. You can read more about

796
00:41:37,600 --> 00:41:42,840
Speaker 1: his work at adamfrankscience dot com and his Facebook author's

797
00:41:42,920 --> 00:41:46,440
Speaker 1: page is Adam Frank Author. Thanks as always to the

798
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:50,080
Speaker 1: excellent JJ Possway for producing the show. A reminder that

799
00:41:50,120 --> 00:41:52,319
Speaker 1: we are a science podcast here at Septa Bow your

800
00:41:52,320 --> 00:41:57,000
Speaker 1: Mind with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Mondays

801
00:41:57,000 --> 00:41:59,000
Speaker 1: we do listener mail, on Wednesdays we do a short

802
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:02,399
Speaker 1: form Artifa Monster Fact episode, and on Fridays we set

803
00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:05,200
Speaker 1: aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird

804
00:42:05,239 --> 00:42:07,799
Speaker 1: film on Weird House Cinema. And yes, we have been

805
00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:11,400
Speaker 1: meaning to discuss Forbidden Planned and maybe this islander for

806
00:42:11,520 --> 00:42:14,120
Speaker 1: some time, so I don't know, Maybe this conversation will

807
00:42:14,680 --> 00:42:18,480
Speaker 1: encourage us to go ahead and view one of those selections.

808
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:23,239
Speaker 1: As always, you can follow us wherever you follow your

809
00:42:23,280 --> 00:42:26,000
Speaker 1: various shows online where on. All of our social media

810
00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:29,640
Speaker 1: accounts are now reactivated. I recommend you check them out.

811
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:33,960
Speaker 1: We are STBYM podcast on Instagram, so follow us there

812
00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:36,839
Speaker 1: if you're not already following us, and if you want

813
00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:39,080
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us, you can email us

814
00:42:39,120 --> 00:42:51,080
Speaker 1: directly at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

815
00:42:51,200 --> 00:42:54,120
Speaker 3: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

816
00:42:54,200 --> 00:42:57,000
Speaker 3: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

817
00:42:57,160 --> 00:43:14,160
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