If we discovered evidence of alien life, would we even realize it?
This isa big issuefor those involved in the search for extraterrestrial life.
But is it really possible to expect the unexpected?
These often reflect a degree of luck on behalf of the researchers involved.
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His experiments have shown how people can missa gorilla banging its chestin front of their eyes.
Similar experiments also show how blind we are tonon-standard playing cardssuch as a black four of hearts.
In the former case, we miss the gorilla if our attention is sufficiently occupied.
In the latter, we miss the anomaly because we have strong prior expectations.
There are also plenty of relevant examples in the history of science.
Philosophers describe this sort of phenomenon as theory-ladenness of observation.
Even more commonly, what we take to be significant can be biased in this way.
With no prior theoretical reason to expect a hole, the scientists ruled it out in advance.
Thankfully, they were minded to double-check, and the discovery was made.
In the last 10 years, scientists have identified more than 3,650 planets more than once per day.
And withmissions such as NASAs TESS exoplanet hunter, this trend will continue.
Each and every new exoplanet is rich in physical and chemical complexity.
The Muller-Lyer optical illusion.Fibonacci/Wikipedia,CC BY-SA
However, we shouldnt exaggerate the theory-ladenness of observation.
The 19th-century physicistDavid Brewsterincorrectly believed that light is made up of particles traveling in a straight line.
Sometimes observation is definitely not theory-laden, at least not in a way that seriously affects scientific discovery.
We need to be open-minded
Certainly, scientists cant proceed by just observing.
Scientific observation needs to be directed somehow.
Studying the universe largely unshackled from theory is not only a legitimate scientific endeavor its a crucial one.
The tendency to describe exploratory science disparagingly asfishing expeditionsis likely to harm scientific progress.
Under-explored areas need exploring, and we cant know in advance what we will find.
In the search for extraterrestrial life, scientists must be thoroughly open-minded.
And this means a certain amount of encouragement for non-mainstream ideas and techniques.
Examples from past science (including very recentones) show that non-mainstream ideas can sometimes be strongly held back.
