As Abraham Loeb sees it, it’s time for humanity to get over itself.
The chairman of Harvard University’s astronomy department recently wrote an article in Scientific American making his case for “cosmic modesty,” a topic he discussed during a W.M. Keck Observatory astronomy talk Thursday evening in Waimea.
“I don’t think life on Earth is special,” Loeb told the Tribune-Herald on Friday, noting nearly a quarter of sun-like stars are thought to host Earth-size planets. “Because we thought in the past we were special in terms of the physical universe. And then we found out we’re not. Some people still believe life on Earth is the center of the biological universe. I do not think so.”
While it might be unusual for a speaker to tell his listeners they’re short of something special, that reality check is what the renowned astronomer says humanity needs as it steps closer to finding evidence of life beyond Earth.
Even if it’s the discovery of the smallest microbe on Mars, or confirmation that a planet in a far-flung solar system has the conditions for life, he said it’s possible that in the coming decades we might come to the stark realization that we’re just not that unique. Or, at least not alone. That, Loeb contends, requires a change in perspective.
“Based on what we’ve learned so far, we’re not special in any way,” he said. “If you adopt this principle, it teaches us modesty. There are so many planets out there. It’s quite likely that life in all of its forms, both primitive and intelligent, exist out there. Just like we find on Earth. It implies that we should search for it.”
And it might make us a more sensible species.
“Kings and emperors conquered small pieces of land on Earth and they felt very proud,” he said. “If you think about the big picture, it’s like an ant hugging a grain of sand on a huge beach.”
Loeb added: “Knowing the bigger picture gives you a better perspective. It makes you act with better sense.”
He said it’s a natural tendency to have an inflated sense of importance.
“The way to find out we’re not at the center of things is to look around and learn more,” Loeb said.
But bruised egos aside, being one part of a larger whole or picture shouldn’t be a letdown, he said.
“We are not completely independent out here or isolated,” Loeb said. “But, in fact, we might have connections to others … and the bigger environment that we share.”
Asked what he hoped the audience took away from his talk, he said a sense that astronomy “gives us a perspective of our place in the universe. It has implications, the search for life has implications, in the way we think about ourselves.”
Loeb also is the chairman of the advisory committee for the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative, which seeks to send small probes to Alpha Centauri; founding director of the Black Hole Initiative; and director of the Institute for Theory and Computation.
Email Tom Callis at tcallis@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
