Harvard professor Avi Loeb believes he's found fragments of alien technology

Apathia said:
"He goes on to liken the pushback he’s received to the oppression that Galileo and Marie Curie endured ..."
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I think we should all take a moment to appreciate the fundamental absurdity of the claim that the former chair of the Department of Astronomy at Harvard University, and current director of the Institute of Theory and Computation at the Harvard Center for Astrophysics, who as recently as two years ago was given exclusive control over an entire UFO research project by the same institution, is the victim of oppression at the hands of the scientific "establishment", as evidenced by people disagreeing with him on X née Twitter.
 
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Stee said:
I remember reading his book regarding Oumuamua and found it interesting.

He came across as simply wanting to suggest that it could have been some sort of ‘light sail’ due to the odd information they got from it. It never seemed like an insistence or that he felt it was the most likely explanation. More seemed that if we weren’t really looking for any evidence of alien tech then we were less likely to find it.

Has he gone past this now!?
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Yeah.
 
Avi Loeb, the Harvard Physicist Who Thinks It’s Always Aliens (Rebecca Watson, video and transcript at the link).

...let’s talk about Avi Loeb, Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University and noted crank who keeps appearing on my social media timeline like an ad for Cheech and Chong’s new CBD gummies.

So yes, Loeb is a very accomplished theoretical physicist who has authored many respected papers on topics like black holes and exoplanets. He’s been at Harvard since 1993, and as these things often go in academia, that means that he’s probably going to stay there until he dies. Unless someone catches him fully making up fraudulent data, that is, I guess. Maybe.

That hasn’t happened (yet?), but in the past few years he has seemingly lost interest in his field of expertise and gone all in on aliens...
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Stee said:
I remember reading his book regarding Oumuamua and found it interesting.

He came across as simply wanting to suggest that it could have been some sort of ‘light sail’ due to the odd information they got from it. It never seemed like an insistence or that he felt it was the most likely explanation. More seemed that if we weren’t really looking for any evidence of alien tech then we were less likely to find it.

Has he gone past this now!?
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Well, read his recent blog post linked in post #61 above.

If anyone's curious, PZ Myers wrote about this in his blog recently (hadn't looked at that in ages):

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/11/27/avi-loeb-has-an-opinion/

And Rebecca did a video on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD8EiH3wpTM

You're right that he is careful enough to never claim to have outright proof for his wild speculations, but that doesn't prevent him from using them to garner lots of attention. Then he disparages others who criticize his ideas by calling them jealous and toxic.
 
Puppycow said:
Well, read his recent blog post linked in post #61 above.

If anyone's curious, PZ Myers wrote about this in his blog recently (hadn't looked at that in ages):

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/11/27/avi-loeb-has-an-opinion/

And Rebecca did a video on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD8EiH3wpTM

You're right that he is careful enough to never claim to have outright proof for his wild speculations, but that doesn't prevent him from using them to garner lots of attention. Then he disparages others who criticize his ideas by calling them jealous and toxic.
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He does categorically claim though that a) the evidence is being supressed and b) the scientific definition of evidence is too strict.
 
1 MINUTE AGO: Brian Cox Just Revealed The New Declassified Images Of Oumuamua



Umm. No. I don't think so. If I was Brian Cox, I would sue (ask YT to take down) this extremely idiotic video. And there ain't no "The New Declassified Images Of Oumuamua" and its not "back" either.

If pigs had wings they still could not fly. Square-cube lawWP and all.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
1 MINUTE AGO: Brian Cox Just Revealed The New Declassified Images Of Oumuamua



Umm. No. I don't think so. If I was Brian Cox, I would sue (ask YT to take down) this extremely idiotic video. And there ain't no "The New Declassified Images Of Oumuamua" and its not "back" either.

If pigs had wings they still could not fly. Square-cube lawWP and all.
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Can't watch owner has blocked play-back on other websites.
 
Harvard astronomy professor Avi Loeb thinks he has new evidence of alien spacecraft

Article, but also a radio interview. Here we see again his claims that his critics must be "jealous".
One October 2023 paper deemed the spherules were made by human-produced coal ash.

Loeb put out new findings last week that he claims debunks that theory, he said.

"What we did is compare 55 elements from the periodic table in coal ash to those special spherules that we found," he said. "And it's clearly very different."

He said his work follows the scientific method: collecting materials, analyzing them and following the evidence.

"It’s not based on opinions," Loeb said. "And, of course, if you’re not part of this scientific process and you are jealous of the attention that it gets, then you can raise a lot of criticism."
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It's not coal ash, therefore it's an artifact of a billions of years old extraterrestrial civilization.

No, Avi. You don't get to draw such a conclusion and call what you are doing "Science."
 
"55 elements from the periodic table" is a curious turn of phrase. I'd be more impressed if some of them were not in the Periodic table. :confused:
 
It’s possible that he rebutted the coal ash hypothesis. I don’t personally have the expertise to say whether or not he has.

TBH, that idea seemed a little bit out of left field to me, or at least it seems like that in hindsight. Why not a natural meteorite? There’s a lot of mundane possibilities in between coal ash and alien artifacts. Or perhaps I should say other than those two.
 
Puppycow said:
It’s possible that he rebutted the coal ash hypothesis. I don’t personally have the expertise to say whether or not he has.
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Yeah, that's a hard call. I'm still working through the science. It's a statistical argument; Loeb contends that the chemical composition falls outside (statistically speaking) what can be expected from Solar System meteorites, and therefore must be considered extrasolar. Both critiques note that this misstates the expectations, and each poses a different model that suggests Leob's rejection of a local origin is premature.

TBH, that idea seemed a little bit out of left field to me, or at least it seems like that in hindsight. Why not a natural meteorite? There’s a lot of mundane possibilities in between coal ash and alien artifacts. Or perhaps I should say other than those two.
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Coal ash is a significant source of terrestrially-formed spherules, but it's also a common contaminant of meteoritic spherules. The argument is that the trace-element analysis Loeb did to confirm the presence of exotic metals in abundances not predicted by other hypotheses did not properly account for the possibility of contamination, or (in the Oct. 2023 note) misidentification.

I agree that disfavoring any meteoritic origin could be considered also premature. Counterclaiming that a different chemical analysis precludes any extraterrestrial origin seems to miss the mark in the other direction. The lengthier criticism goes into more detail about the profusion of ocean floor spherules from both terrestrial and extraterrestrial sources and argues a different hypothesis for the abundances of materials Loeb believes are dispositive of an extrasolar origin.
 
I also don’t doubt that extra-solar meteorites are likely a thing. Probably rarer when they fall to earth than those originating from within the solar system, but not so rare that they never appear. But those too are more likely to be natural objects than alien artifacts.
 
Puppycow said:
I also don’t doubt that extra-solar meteorites are likely a thing. Probably rarer when they fall to earth than those originating from within the solar system, but not so rare that they never appear. But those too are more likely to be natural objects than alien artifacts.
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Yeah, the last bit is what really has me scratching my head. I can just about see how one might surmise "possibly extrasolar origin" from the (purportedly) atypical chemical composition, but not how one concludes that it must be alien *technology*. Was the uranium enriched? Was the beryllium in some sort of whizz-bang iron alloy? Has Loeb presented a model of what he expects alien technology to look like, or is he just using the "I can't explain it, therefore aliens" approach?
 
I don't have Loeb's original paper, so I can only address the hearsay claims in the second (longer) critique, https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2311/2311.07699.pdf . From p. 2 :—
Desch & Jackson said:
While the manuscript focused on the possibility that the spherules are from a natural object, it also suggested they “may reflect an extraterrestrial technological origin.” The framing of the USA Today article advances this by repeating claims that the spherules are “unmatched to any existing alloys.” About the paper, on August 31 Loeb said to Salon: “The ideal scenario is that in addition to tiny fragments, we would find a piece of an advanced technological device, like the hundredth version of the iPhone… I would love to press a button on such an object.” Not coincidentally, Loeb’s book, Interstellar: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Our Future in the Stars, was published the same day the manuscript and press releases were posted.
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Loeb seems to be tap-dancing around the claim that the spherules he discovered were not only extra-solar in origin but were evidence of a nonterrestrial intelligence. Desch and Jackson level additional criticism against Loeb's apparent sensationalism in place of science.
 
Reformed Offlian said:
Yeah, the last bit is what really has me scratching my head. I can just about see how one might surmise "possibly extrasolar origin" from the (purportedly) atypical chemical composition, but not how one concludes that it must be alien *technology*.
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I still think we should seriously consider the possibility that Professor Loeb doesn't believe a word of the nonsense he's peddling, and has not actually concluded anything out of the ordinary about his "samples".
 
theprestige said:
I still think we should seriously consider the possibility that Professor Loeb doesn't believe a word of the nonsense he's peddling, and has not actually concluded anything out of the ordinary about his "samples".
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What Loeb personally believes doesn't really matter to me. I'm only interested in what, if anything, his data might suggest. If they don't show UFOs, then whether Loeb thinks they do, or concludes that they do, is unimportant.
 
Reformed Offlian said:
What Loeb personally believes doesn't really matter to me. I'm only interested in what, if anything, his data might suggest. If they don't show UFOs, then whether Loeb thinks they do, or concludes that they do, is unimportant.
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My bad. I intended to imply a much stronger indictment of Loeb. I think his data doesn't suggest anything, and he knows it. I don't think this is a case of, "ignoring his overblown claims, let's see if his data shows anything interesting." Rather, I think this is a case of a charlatan knowingly peddling snake oil to rubes. His data won't show anything interesting, because his samples aren't interesting to begin with, he knows it, and he's lying about it.
 
theprestige said:
I still think we should seriously consider the possibility that Professor Loeb doesn't believe a word of the nonsense he's peddling...
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Reformed Offlian said:
What Loeb personally believes doesn't really matter to me. I'm only interested in what, if anything, his data might suggest. If they don't show UFOs, then whether Loeb thinks they do, or concludes that they do, is unimportant.
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theprestige said:
My bad. I intended to imply a much stronger indictment of Loeb. I think his data doesn't suggest anything, and he knows it. ... Rather, I think this is a case of a charlatan knowingly peddling snake oil to rubes.
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I can't stop thinking about this. It really speaks to the heart of what we think we do here.

Do skeptics have a duty to withhold commentary that goes beyond a factual determination of claims? Or can skepticism include criticism for character flaws like hypocrisy? As scientists (and not just skeptics) do we have a duty to police the rhetoric of our profession? To what extent should a claimant's demeanor and rhetoric factor into our reaction without compromising our character and ideals?

Gallardo, writing for publication, is scrupulously dispassionate. He simply presents an alternative view of the evidence and an alternative framing and notes that the logical outcome is to disfavor the proffered conclusion.

Desch and Jackson are not writing for formal publication, but for the public forum that's not dissimilar from Loeb's forum. As of their writing, Loeb had not published his findings so as to include review. Desch and Loeb are at least on equal footing with Loeb in criticizing Loeb's activities and rhetoric beyond his scientific work. Loeb chose a public forum rather than a scientific one in which to present his findings. And he took (and still takes) advantage of that license to add rhetoric to those findings. If Loeb doesn't feel compelled to separate his findings from his rhetoric, are his critics ethically constrained to keep them separate?

There's no easy answer. There is a certain prestige in taking the high road and not flinging muck. The ideal skeptical position seems to be that his claims stand or fall on the merits of his evidence, regardless of why we think he made them. The high road is always the high road.

But here also we have a science practitioner openly courting public sensation and casting aspersions on his critics not for what he can demonstrate is their scientific inadequacy so much as his perception that they are as motivated as he by publicity. As Desch and Jackson note, science thrives on the perception that it is self-regulating and introspective. Do we as skeptics and/or scientists not have a role in maintaining that? If we agree that Loeb is not behaving properly as a scientist, should we just ignore it? If not, is there a way to do it that doesn't risk stooping to his level?
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
Well, Loeb knows the adage, publish or perish.
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Sometimes perishing is better for the field.

Aside from what I wrote above, I kind of side with theprestige on this point. If someone is grandstanding under color of science, I kind of think that's something we as skeptics are within our ethics to point out.
 
JayUtah said:
Sometimes perishing is better for the field.

Aside from what I wrote above, I kind of side with theprestige on this point. If someone is grandstanding under color of science, I kind of think that's something we as skeptics are within our ethics to point out.
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Oh yes the world would be a better place if Loeb received the obscurity he has so richly earned.
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
Oh yes the world would be a better place if Loeb received the obscurity he has so richly earned.
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I don't know about the world in general, but the affected scientific disciplines are better off without sensationalist claims delivered under the auspices of a prestigious university.

The search for extraterrestrial life is a legitimate scientific pursuit. Those who engage in it seriously are mindful that public perception will not necessarily distinguish their efforts from those of past crackpots. Loeb hampers that distinction not because his ideas themselves are maverick, but because his methods and objectivity are questionable.

The study of solar system objects is also legitimate. Those who study them legitimately realize that the extraterrestrial intelligence hypothesis need not be considered for everything that falls out of the skies. Yes, if evidence of intelligence appears, it may be in the form of such an observation. But that's not an excuse to raise our heads like a dog who hears a twig snap, ever hopeful that it's the master returning home, every time something slightly extraordinary happens.

The quest for funding in all scientific disciplines is a major concern. Against their wishes, scientists are forced to be publicists and fundraisers. Competition for scarce resources often focuses on who is best known, not necessarily who is the most skilled or has the most scientifically promising research goal. Scientists view public favor as a means to an end; Loeb seems to see it as the end in itself. His critics don't feel jealousy so much as annoyance at what they perceive from him as largely mercenary and attention-seeking behavior.

The last straw is laid when Loeb accuses his critics of being poor scientists who are just jealous of his success. Peer review is a necessarily adversarial processes that requires the reviewer to take a skeptical approach to the work of his colleagues. It's hard enough to rise above the emotion and keep our eyes on the prize of overall scientific correctness and credibility without Loeb seemingly going out of his way to take the process personally.

So what is the skeptic's responsibility? Is it enough simply to look dispassionately at his findings and note the flaws in his methods and conclusions without passion? Or is there a skeptical (not overall beneficent) allowance for calling out a bad actor? I'm quoted around the Internet as saying, "Skeptics are the consumer advocates in the marketplace of ideas." How much of that can be subsumed simply by saying, "This guy's data is unpersuasive," versus the more contentious, emotional, and rhetorical approach of, "This guy's data is unpersuasive, and his behavior seems more consistent with fleecing the rubes than with advancing the frontiers of knowledge?"
 
JayUtah said:
fleecing the rubes
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It's the zeitgeist now, in politics, and as always in advertising.
Too much of mainstream journalism (not to speak of the tabloids) is enabling the grifts.

If we don't call out and hold these crackpots to account, we'll have our 1984 plus Creationism and crystal healing.

Of course we should maintain freedom of speech and use it to dismiss craptastic pseudoscience

If Harvard won't hold him to a higher standard of scientific research, a responsible press must, before it's just too late and all we have are journals of alternative science, manipulative, sensationalist, History Channel media, and The narratives of Arthur Gordon Pym.
 
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