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Mercury, January/February 1997 Table of Contents

(c) 1997 Astronomical Society of the Pacific

A year ago, we were just finding out about planets around other Sun-like stars; life on Mars was a possibility supported by only the most circumstantial of evidence; and Independence Day had something to do with British, rather than Zeta Reticulan, imperialism.

The events of the past year have touched on a topic of universal appeal. In New York cafés, San Francisco junior-high classrooms, and remote Thai and Ghanaian villages, one question always comes up when I tell people I study the planets: Is life out there?

In articles on why ETs so engross the public, scientists have tended to focus on the pathological side of this fascination: conspiracy theories, gullibility about UFO reports, New Age occultism. These authors have no shortage of hypotheses for such beliefs: media sensationalism, poor science education, human cognitive limitations, social angst, the impersonal God of modern religions.

Some people, it is true, do look to the skies for their saviors, scapegoats, or sexual partners [see "They're Out to Get Us," November/December 1995, p. 23]. Yet the widespread fascination with ETs is no pathology. Plenty of scientists trace their career interest to science fiction and its persistent intimation that we are not alone. It is worth trying to understand this fascination, because it is probably the single greatest reason that the public supports astronomy.

Part of the fascination is surely that the topic of extraterrestrial life offers a limitless opportunity to exercise imagination. Do ETs exist? What is their relation to us? What heights of technology and morality can living things achieve? We know so little, and the possibilities are so many. Imagination adores a vacuum. Imagination is how people come up with ideas in science as in art, even if its role has been neglected in discussions of the "scientific method." [see "What's Cooking?" p. 29].

What titillates our imaginations in this case is our seemingly perpetual inability to get answers. Whenever I hear a report of a "Wow" signal or a phenomenon that at first just doesn't seem to have any other explanation, my pulse quickens. Could this be it? But then the signal vanishes or the phenomenon is explained. Most scientists and laypeople would agree that life is probably out there somewhere, but proof has been the greatest delayed gratification of modern science.

For movie scriptwriters and audiences, ETs are the ultimate plot device: If it's impossible or tiresome for a human to do something, make an alien. Commenting on the planet discoveries in Time magazine last February, Lance Morrow wrote, "The fascination with extraterrestrials may reflect an exhaustion of the secrets and novelties of Earth and of earthly behavior...We know one another too well."

On the other hand, earthly experience is still the raw material for our imaginations. Clearly, when we think of ETs, we are constructing reflections of ourselves, just as we project our own feelings onto other people and animals. If and when we ever do meet ETs, our urge will be to empathize with them. And if self-consciousness (and other-consciousness) is part and parcel of intelligence, the ETs will probably be just as interested in us.

Whereas other questions of science seem too settled, too technical, too reductionist, space aliens and the other Big Questions of science perplex the expert as well as the layperson ­ and laypeople know it [see "Life On Mars... and in Science," p. 24]. They can discuss ET life in a meaningful way, and it feels empowering to do so ­ not to mention a lot more fun than complaining about the morning commute.

"People see scientists as trying to explore, trying to strip away the mystery, and they like that," Charles Petit of the San Francisco Chronicle says. "People like to wonder how the world works. They like to know that someone in the society has that expertise."

Interest in the Big Questions bears more than a passing resemblance to religion. It is telling that many people speak of cutting-edge scientific issues in the same terms they use for spiritual matters. Do you believe in UFOs? Do you believe they'll find a cure for AIDS? How do scientific discoveries touch human values [see "The Natural Universe," p. 27]? It is ironic that many scientists and science-policy makers are so worried about making their fields "relevant" to the practical needs of the nation, when public support for science seems to be rooted in its spiritual aspects. NASA, finally appreciating this, is regrouping its disciplines; its "Origins" program, concerned with the search for life and the origin of the universe, is to be discussed at the Clinton administration's "Space Summit" next month. Among the experts who briefed Vice President Al Gore last month about the program were two theologians.

Science educators need to catch up. "Part of the failing of science education is that it does not deal with mysteries," says Mike Seeds of Franklin and Marshall College [see "Teaching the Real Message of Astronomy," September/October 1996, p. 21; Black Holes to Blackboards, p. 9]. Even the most progressive hands-on, inquiry-based science lesson can have this failing if it focuses on the inductive process and forgets the Big Questions that students have. Hands-on should not mean soul-off.