Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum. Here, science fiction has populated our
Speaker 1: galaxy with countless extraterrestrial civilizations and interplanetary conflicts. In the
Speaker 1: real world, however, we have yet to encounter even the
Speaker 1: most basic form of microscopic alien life, much less a
Speaker 1: technologically advanced and conveniently human shaped one. So why is this?
Speaker 1: One possibility is that habitable planets are rare, and that
Speaker 1: intelligent life itself is an anomaly. In other words, we
Speaker 1: might truly be alone. It's also conceivable that other technically
Speaker 1: advanced civilizations are simply too far away for either party
Speaker 1: to know of the other. But what if alien life
Speaker 1: is widespread through the galactic neighborhood and we've been intentionally
Speaker 1: excluded from the block party? Behold the zoo hypothesis. The
Speaker 1: essential idea behind the Zoo high apothesis has been the
Speaker 1: subject of scientific and science fictional cosmology for decades. For example,
Speaker 1: see fiction from authors like Olaf Stapleton in the nineteen
Speaker 1: thirties and Arthur C. Clark in the nineteen fifties. But
Speaker 1: M I T. Radio astronomer John Ball is often credited
Speaker 1: with laying it out in ninety three. In essence, the
Speaker 1: zoo hypothesis serves as a possible solution to the Fermi paradox,
Speaker 1: named for scientist Enrico Fermi. The Fermi paradox refers to
Speaker 1: the contradiction between the high likelihood of systems spanning intelligent
Speaker 1: life according to some interpretations of the Drake equation, which
Speaker 1: is used to estimate the potential number of communicating civilizations
Speaker 1: in our galaxy, and the lack of evidence for such
Speaker 1: intelligent life. The aliens might be there, this hypothesis suggests,
Speaker 1: and they might be intentionally hiding from us, as the
Speaker 1: name implies. One way to imagine such a scenario is
Speaker 1: that Earth could have been set aside as a sort
Speaker 1: of zoo or nature reserve. Perhaps the aliens just prefer
Speaker 1: to observe life in a closed system, or they could
Speaker 1: have ethical reasons for not interfering in our technological and
Speaker 1: cultural progress, akin to the prime directive from Star Trek. Potentially,
Speaker 1: more sinister interpretation can be found in balls laboratory hypothesis.
Speaker 1: The aliens don't talk to us because we're part of
Speaker 1: an experiment they're conducting. As astrophysicists William L. Newman and
Speaker 1: Carl Sagan explained in their night paper Galactic Civilizations, Population Dynamics,
Speaker 1: and Interstellar Diffusion, it's ultimately impossible to predict the aims
Speaker 1: and beliefs of a hypothetical advanced civilization. However, they stressed
Speaker 1: that such ideas are worthwhile in that they help us
Speaker 1: imagine quote less apparent social impediments to extensive interstellar colonization.
Speaker 1: In other words, if we're putting all ideas on the
Speaker 1: table concerning the possibility of advanced alien life, then the
Speaker 1: Zoo hypothesis has a place on the cosmological lazy Susan
Speaker 1: But we have to be careful about avoiding anthropost centrism,
Speaker 1: the tendency to assume that human beings are at the
Speaker 1: center of cosmic concerns. For the article this episode is
Speaker 1: based on how Stuff Work. Spoke with particle physicist Daniel Whiteson.
Speaker 1: He said, I think that's pretty unlikely. I don't like
Speaker 1: that the Zoo hypothesis puts us at the center of things,
Speaker 1: and it also seems implausible because it requires a vast
Speaker 1: galactic conspiracy. When was the last time anybody worked together
Speaker 1: to keep a secret? The best argument against having secret
Speaker 1: aliens visiting the Earth is just that governments are not
Speaker 1: capable of maintaining secrecy like that, especially over decades. You
Speaker 1: might be tempted to argue that, well, we're talking about
Speaker 1: alien governments here, not human governments. But our contemplation of
Speaker 1: possible alien life is largely based on the only existing
Speaker 1: model we have us. If we can't maintain vast conspiracies,
Speaker 1: then what chance to aliens have. All Whiteson said, I
Speaker 1: think it's very unlikely that aliens are somehow capable of that,
Speaker 1: though perhaps they are. I like that the Zoo hypothesis
Speaker 1: tries to answer this question in a whimsical, creative way.
Speaker 1: It's fun for telling a story, but it puts a
Speaker 1: lot of human motivations in the minds of these unknown aliens. However,
Speaker 1: as Newman and Sagan pointed out, the idea isn't entirely untestable.
Speaker 1: If we could one day detect alien communications, the Zoo
Speaker 1: hypothesis would be falsifiable, and the nonprofit group Messaging Extraterrestrial
Speaker 1: Intelligence or MEDI, advocates the creation and transmission of interstellar
Speaker 1: messages that could, in theory, let any cosmic zookeepers out
Speaker 1: there know that we would like to see beyond our enclosure.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is b based on the article the zoo
Speaker 1: Hypothesis Are aliens watching us like animals in a zoo?
Speaker 1: On how stuff Works dot com written by Robert Lamb.
Speaker 1: For more from Robert, tune into his podcast to Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind and to hear more from Daniel
Speaker 1: whiteson tune into his podcast Daniel and Orgae Explain the Universe.
Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radio in partnership
Speaker 1: with how stuff works dot com, and it's produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clang and Ramsey Yeah. Four more podcasts my heart Radio,
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