After watching a fairly mindblowing interview with Dr. Jill Tarter, I have a number of follow-up questions. First, I would ask her to expand on what was going on in her mind during the two false positives. What kinds of predictions was she making in her mind about what the result of those positives would be? What did her mind immediately leap to, and was it based in some scientific knowledge or more in some human instinct or gut feeling? Throughout the interview, I was trying to imagine how I would feel if I were on the receiving end of those signals, but I kept thinking about what seems to me to be a low likelihood that contact would happen to me or even in our lifetimes (bonus question: when does she think contact would happen? In the 21st century, as implied by her comment on this being a prime time for biology on Earth and elsewhere?). I understand that the history of science is filled with huge reaches, and scientists doing work without knowing if the results would be fruitful, but this skepticism that for some reason I could not shake relates to my next question: What motivates her to do the work she does? Does she ever lose hope or get discouraged, and what pushes her to keep going? Finally, I would also ask how the Drake equation ("it predicts nothing") relates to predicting the human response to aliens, which was a topic of discussion that piqued my interest in the interview. It seems to me that as much uncertainty there is in predicting the existence of extraterrestrial life forms, there would be that much more uncertainty in predicting how people on Earth would respond just because the incredible unpredictable aspect of human behavior is factored in. However, I would appreciate her expert perspective.
top of page
bottom of page
I also found her description of those two false positives fascinating because it really does seem like the best preparation for some of the questions you ask about human response. If I were in her position, receiving signals from what looked like an alien, I would immediately think I had done something wrong and would not assume it was actually an alien. Obviously, Dr. Tarter takes her work seriously and believes in what she's doing so she has reason to believe that she might actually get so lucky as to make contact with some extraterrestrial life. I follow up question I would have to these questions is: would anyone actually believe scientists who said they received contact from extraterrestrial life?