Read the following passage twice:
I believe civilizations that prioritize science should be valued higher than those that don’t. The greater the fraction of its gross domestic product that is used on scientific research and exploration, the higher it ranks. This is for the simple reason that accumulating evidence-based knowledge allows a civilization to cope better with the challenges it faces, whether those challenges be disease, environmental catastrophe, or space travel. It is better for a civilization to attend to the well-being of its planet and the life the planet supports. It is better for a civilization to dedicate more of its productive wealth and capacity toward the increase of knowledge and the decrease of ignorance.
Written, astonishingly, by a scientist, the excerpt is from Avi Loeb’s Interstellar: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Our Future in the Stars (Mariner Books; 256 pages; $28.99). The book is a manifestation of the author’s yearning for “a higher intelligence in outer space” to show mankind “what we could aspire to be.”
Homo sapiens, as it currently exists, just isn’t up to Loeb’s exacting standards. Throughout Interstellar, the physicist bashes his fellow Terrans for their “immaturity,” their production of “consumer goods, most of which are single- or brief-use items,” and the inexcusable way so few practice “science and the scientific method.”
We’re merely a D-class civilization, Loeb huffs, one “actively degrading its home planet’s ability to sustain conditions that prolong life and civilization.”
You know the villain — “climate change … unambiguously due to human activity.” Last year’s co-Nobel Laureate in physics is one of many big brains who finds weather-related apocalypticism preposterous, but wrongthink is no way to secure the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science at Harvard University. Whatever The Current Thing is, Loeb’s all in. (“For centuries, our civilization suppressed the contributions of an entire gender. We mustn’t repeat that error.”)
Well, with one exception. Willing to draw the derision of his peers, the founder of The Galileo Project believes that “humanity is on the cusp of profound discoveries about our cosmic neighborhood.” Why? A few years ago, “the dawn of humanity’s interstellar future” broke, when ʻOumuamua swung by. What NASA calls the “first confirmed object from another star to visit our solar system” fascinated all intelligent, thoughtful people, of course. But Loeb got intensely — perhaps, irrationally — inspired. The rocky tourist, he claims, is “most plausibly of extraterrestrial manufacture.”
Sky-watchers would go on to identify three more long-distance visitors: 2I/Borisov, IM1, and IM2. In a 2022 paper coauthored with a student, Loeb asserted that the “extraordinary mass budget required to produce interstellar meteors seemingly defies planetary systems origins,” and thus, “some other highly efficient route for creating meter-scale objects made of refectory elements” was necessary.
Okay … but aliens? Seriously? Give Interstellar credit for avoiding the loopier fantasies of UFO cultism. Excluding a look at the feds’ UAP nonsense, the book is mostly grounded in rational conjecture, with no mentions of Men in Black, abductions and uncomfortable probes, and unnatural structures “proven” to exist on the Moon and Mars. One potential for “contact” is an encounter with AI machines, not biological entities. Or we may find evidence of long-dead intelligent lifeforms:
If the archeologists’ task on Earth is to dig ever deeper to discover preserved artifacts from ancient, less-advanced human civilizations, in space the task will be to sift the surfaces of planets in expectation of discovering the last, best thing an extraterrestrial civilization put in our path.
Compelling stuff. And there’s more. Even non-astronomers should understand the difference between meteoroid, meteor, and meteorite. Interstellar lays out the distinctions. How do we know that a space object came our way from another star’s zip code? Loeb explains the velocity and composition issues. Particularly intriguing are his speculations about why aliens would visit. A “cosmic band of Doctors Without Borders” is one possibility. Another is “the Zoo Hypothesis,” which envisions ETs finding us “sufficiently curious or amusing to stop off and glimpse at,” similar to the way “we visit a zoo.”
Sadly, Loeb’s technocratic totalitarianism severely detracts from his illuminating elucidations and mind-bending thought experiments. Like any central planner, he attaches no importance to individuality or economic liberty, and appears oblivious to the reality that others do not share his priorities. If science is the determinative measure of a civilization’s value, where does that leave freedom? Justice? Beauty? Pleasure? Compassion? Inner peace?
Compared to Avi Loeb, Anthony Fauci is humble and self-effacing. It’s not the type of personality that comes in handy when you’re trying to induce readers to join your crusade for humanity to “ascend the ladder of civilizations.”
Physicist Dr. Michio Kaku used to make appearances on the Art Bell overnight show on a somewhat regular basis for many years. On the evolutionary scale of 5 being the highest level of knowledge and abilities for a civilized planet, Dr. Kaku rated the Earth as a Zero. To go from zero to a 1 is a huge jump and would mean that we would have concurred many if not all the problems of surviving on earth and started traveling throughout space. Getting to 1 will not be something we will see in our lifetime and we may never see it. Humans are a barbaric social structure and will have too much to overcome to actually be on a scientific level that would make us more capable of mastering our planet and to start mastering the rest of the Universe.
We are more likely to destroy ourselves with Wars over the "Green New Deal" and "New World Order" than actually achieving anything really intellectually substantive. We may have to destroy half or more of the population of Earth in order to get past the petty differences that Politics & Power have created and we may simply never get there. In order to get to another level of being a scientifically substantive civilization, so many things would have to happen that it is most likely impossible. Sorry for the doom and gloom, but we are a Primitive World Social Construct and I see nothing on the horizon that says we will be anything greater! I actually think we were more inventive and scientific in ancient times than we are today. I still want to know how the Pyramids were actually built! And how we went from pyramids to wood frame houses and stucco!
Good call on your part. What arrogance on Avi Loeb's part.
I see Homo sapiens as being relatively adaptable to our environment (air conditioning, etc.). Unfortunately, the elite want to to use climate change to make everyone else miserable.