✅ Extraordinary claims 🤷‍♂️❓ Extraordinary evidence www.theguardian.com/science/2025... - ThreadSky

drjoehanson.bsky.social • 8 days ago

✅ Extraordinary claims
🤷‍♂️❓ Extraordinary evidence

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/apr/17/scientists-hail-strongest-evidence-so-far-for-life-beyond-our-solar-system

Comments

drjoehanson.bsky.social•8 days ago

It's pretty hard to be sure that a chemical that we associate with life can ONLY be made by living things. Chemistry is pretty weird, and the galaxy is a very big petri dish

https://bsky.app/profile/planetdr.bsky.social/post/3lmz35zo6hc2c

drjoehanson.bsky.social•8 days ago

People who are not part of this research team are very much more skeptical of these claims than the people who did the research. That's not necessarily a glaring red flag, it's actually how science should work!

https://bsky.app/profile/chrislintott.bsky.social/post/3lmy63mdxkc27

jamiedonaldson.bsky.social•3 days ago

Using the phrase “petri dish” is quite funny in this case.

damianreloaded.bsky.social•8 days ago

My hot take is that life is "everywhere" and intelligent life is new and we are among the first. I will let science the task of proving me right ^_^

whitewaterlawyer.bsky.social•7 days ago

that's basically filter theory, it's not an unusual "belief" at all. But, it is so far "just a theory" in the sense that the hypothesis is pretty well fleshed out and not disproven. but we are still figuring out how to test.

This data is consistent with the theory. We SHOULD expect most life to be

whitewaterlawyer.bsky.social•7 days ago

relatively simple, and if filter hypothesis is true we will see things like "chemicals that are more likely with life than without" more frequently than indicators of advanced civilizations. I think early proponents of filter hypothesis didn't anticipate that we would get this much from spectroscopy

clodpool.bsky.social•8 days ago

“The universe danced towards life. Life was a remarkably common commodity. Anything sufficiently complicated seemed to get cut in for some, in the same way that anything massive enough got a generous helping of gravity.”
- Terry Pratchett

nagi159.bsky.social•8 days ago

i often find myself going back and forth on this kind of thing too

tylerhinundher.bsky.social•8 days ago

I wouldn't be surprised if intelligent life is everywhere too but just too spread out for us to find

damianreloaded.bsky.social•8 days ago

The problem is that if intelligent life is old, there should be super advanced civilizations all around us, but they aren't. Therefor, intelligence is new, because there is zero chance we are the only ones unless its a simulation created 5000 years ago.

khakionion.bsky.social•8 days ago

That doesn’t logically follow at all. It’s possible that there are multiple intelligent civilizations all over the universe, even superintelligences, but if FTL travel is impossible we’ll never know

damianreloaded.bsky.social•8 days ago

You can colonize the entire galaxy several times over in just the time the Earth has been around, with spaceships moving at a small fraction of the speed of light, look it up, it's been discussed for ages.

astropotamus.com•8 days ago

Fermi's Paradox can be argued on both sides easily enough. But science fiction writers have been speculating for centuries that maybe the aliens are smarter than us and don't want to be discovered because other aliens might come and take their toys away.

dtcupcakes.bsky.social•8 days ago

I feel like people are overlooking the results of this paper which also came out today: https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.12030
tl;dr the amount of starlight being reflected into space by this planet is way too low to prevent a runaway greenhouse effect, which would not allow the existence of a liquid water ocean

michaelrobbers.bsky.social•8 days ago

Off note I'm so happy I found your bluesky account. I've been watching your stuff on YouTube with my son ever since my son was old enough to ask all the fun questions children do. He is now in middle school and science is one of his top subjects. Keep up the good work we appreciate it!

michaelrobbers.bsky.social•8 days ago

Also I like the Carl Sagan reference.