Controversial scientist Avi Loeb lashes out at NASA and other researchers as 3I/ATLAS zooms through the solar system – Jalopnik

Astrophysicist Avi Loeb has become a minor celebrity of science since a mysterious object called 3I/ATLAS was first spotted last summer. Most researchers think it is an intriguing interstellar comet; Loeb has suggested it could be an alien spacecraft. And now Loeb is lashing out at scientists who claim he’s wrong.

This from one of his recent Medium posts:

Imaginative scientists master the humility to learn something new from anomalies rather than displaying the arrogance of expertise. Life is worth living when we allow the unexpected to surprise us. Bureaucrats or unimaginative scientists want us to believe in the expected. But the rest of us know that the best is yet to come.

These are fighting words in the world of serious researchers. Penn State astronomer Jason Wright has been one of the leading scientists to criticize Loeb’s speculations, while paying relatively close attention to the hoopla surrounding 3I/ATLAS as it passes through the solar system. Loeb has now extended his complaints to NASA, because after the end of the government shutdown… Agency held a press conference where representatives did not adopt Loeb’s points and instead insisted that 3I/ATLAS is just a comet.

Loeb is no stranger to suggesting that strange objects flying through space may have an intelligent extraterrestrial origin. He came onto the pop culture radar in 2017 when an earlier object, 1I/Oumuamua, visited the solar system (he suggested it could be a remnant of alien technology, perhaps a solar sail or even a solar system specimen). “hybrid” type propulsion). His enthusiasm for the idea that we’re not alone has endeared him to many people who are genuinely scientifically curious, but it’s also put him in the orbit (sorry!) of some crazy characters and won him uneasy alliances with the likes of eccentric Rep. Anna Paulina Luna.

That’s all well and good – the realism of scientific celebrities can become difficult as scientists are forced to entertain various outlandish theories of figures who ‘just ask questions’, or are purely attention-seeking. What has become more troubling lately is how aggressively Loeb is sticking to his guns despite some fairly clear, science-based rejections of his claims. For example, Wright points out a refutation of certain Loeb analyzes by Astrophysicist Steve Desch from Arizona Statewho says Loeb’s 3I/ATLAS calculations are “100% wrong.” Not just a little different, but completely finished.

If Loeb has built his case for investigating the 3I/ATLAS anomalies on shaky math and some fundamental errors in reasoning, then he should essentially be turning his own arguments about scientists admitting errors back on themselves. Part of the scientific community seems to argue that Loeb doesn’t quite know what he’s talking about. Wright doesn’t understand why Loeb didn’t consult comet experts. Before 3I/ATLAS entered the range of countless probes and telescopes, some researchers asked Loeb to tone it down so that proper observation of the object could be carried out by scientists equipped to closely examine interstellar phenomena. Unfortunately, much of this past week’s cycle has been about how angry Loeb is that NASA didn’t entertain his ideas. “NASA representatives should have emphasized what we don’t understand about 3I/ATLAS, instead of emphasizing that it is a known comet from a new birth environment,” he wrote on Medium.

But why would NASA have done that? It would have confirmed Loeb’s curiosity, at the expense of scientists who, by studying the available data, concluded that 3I/ATLAS, to paraphrase, a comet that does comet things.

As someone fascinated by both the passion of scientists and their hesitant, often messy search for the truth and the amusingly deranged realm of UFOs and the lore and mythologies that UFO enthusiasts have created, I am disappointed that Loeb has thus far ignored the specifics of his critics, choosing to focus on the “arrogance of expertise.” He’s not doing himself any favors by insisting that the experts who might disagree with him are more interested in defending their territory than in, you know, promoting their actual expertise.

We certainly have to give Loeb credit for keeping 3I/ATLAS in the news frequently as the object passes through the solar system, even though the headlines have sometimes been sensational and much of the social media activity is best dismissed as engagement-farming science fiction. It’s worth pointing out that the “3” in 3I/ATLAS is there because we have only identified three of these interstellar objects in human history. We want to find many more in the future. If Loeb’s speculations allow that, we can easily forgive him for calling other scientists arrogant when in fact they were just being patient and not jumping to hasty, albeit extremely interesting, conclusions.