Science based on evidence is our best way to acquire new knowledge of the physical reality that we all share. The engine that advances science is to test new theoretical ideas by experimental data. Its successes are obvious in the latest technologies of the editing of CRISPR genes, artificial intelligence, quantum information technologies and GPS navigation, which makes our lives today much better than that of past generations. But despite the brilliant veneer set out by the main scientists and journalists, the scientific method also offers the most spectacular displays of the human minds of the human mind to imagine what reality looks like.
Over the past decade, the Nobel Prize in physics has been mainly given to “old news», Namely the ideas that were proposed decades ago, such as the Higgs mechanism, the neutrino oscillations, the gravitational waves, the exoplanets, the black holes or the quantum tangle. Why are new ideas not celebrated as often as they were a century ago, when the fundamental principles of relativity, quantum mechanics and particle physics were discovered? Fruits.
An alternative explanation is that the physics community has become too dogmatic and opposed to risk as to the instructions that deserve to be prosecuted. Taking the bad traditional paths and not exploring alternatives leads the community to scientific dead ends, rich in mathematical gymnastics but without experimental support – the traditional prerequisite for the verified descriptions of reality. In this ecosystem, the professional success of theoretical physicists is evaluated by their mathematical virtuosity rather than their success to find the nature of reality. For example, the concept of a multiverse containing regions of space-time to which we do not have access, recently attracted the more traditional attention than the search for technological signatures of extraterrestrial civilizations in the billions of analogues of Terre-Dille in the milky galaxy.
To understand how to correct the course, we must admit errors of the dominant current and learn. Innovation can only flourish if it is properly maintained, because the human mind naturally derives to maximize the number of “likes” which it obtains in echo chambers saturated by stories which are not necessarily supported by facts.
Let me be clear. I focus here on the dominant current of the physical community which includes thousands of brilliant scientists. It is not a marginal community that branched up on the side, but the community which represents what is considered the most reasonable thing to do among the most famous practitioners in the profession. Learning errors of our herd is the only way for us to understand how to improve the efficiency of the engine of scientific discovery.
There are many examples to contemplate from the last half century of fundamental physics. Consider supersymmetry, an idea adopted by the dominant current as a probable foundation for string theory, and as an explanation of dark matter in the form of the lightest (and therefore stable) supersymmetrical particle. The great collision of Hadrons du Cern did not find Supersymmetry in its natural range of parameters. In parallel, for four decades, direct detection experiences did not find A massive particle with low interruption at low interaction, leading to higher limits much lower than the expected values. Likewise, the initially convincing idea of cosmic inflation led to its natural conclusion that Anything can happen in the multiverse And allowed us to retro-engineer everything we find in our universe as part of an infinite range of possibilities. In addition, the idea of unifying quantum mechanics and severity in the additional spatial dimensions in the context of string theory did not produce a unique mathematical framework with testable predictions, constituting a dead end from the point of view of science based on evidence.
Navigation errors are common among traditional leaders. Albert Einstein supported between 1935 and 1939 that quantum mechanics should not have “Avanty action at a distance”, this gravitational wave does not existand these black holes do not form. These errors should not be considered as stains on the career of Einstein, but rather as testimonies of the nature of science as an learning experience in which errors are as important as successes. The attention to the three errors of Einstein has led to three Nobel prizes in physics in the last decade, awarded to the experimental teams which have proven to be wrong of Einstein on the three fronts.
What is the lesson to learn from the dominant current errors? An important overview is that resources should propagate among a diverse set of approaches to determine the unknown. For example, instead of investing more than ten billion dollars only in the search for microbes – as recommended By the dominant current of the astronomy community these days, we must cover our bets and allocate a level of financing similar to the search for extraterrestrial technological signatures. Of course, extraterrestrial intelligence can be rare, but its signatures could be easier to detect. Without a dedicated research of evidence, we may never find it. If we have chosen to change course and invest billions of dollars on theoretical and experimental research associated with extraterrestrial civilizations and not find anything after forty years, then this research community will have the same file as the general public community which has focused on the search for black matter in the past forty years. Are taxpayers more reluctant to explore the question: “Are we alone?” What are they to finance the search for the nature of dark matter? What matters as risky by the dominant current is often based on prejudices or psychological biases.
We better admit that we are all looking for in darkness. But gross curiosity, rather than prejudices, concerning the questions that most matter to society should propel science to the future. In the cover of our bets to promote innovation, we must finance several exploration paths for each fundamental question. For example, when looking for a guide on how to unify quantum mechanics and gravity, we must explore new experimental quantum tests rather than new mathematical structures beyond our cosmic horizon. When looking for extraterrestrial life, we must seek primitive life as well as technological life. When searching for extraterrestrial technological signatures, we must look for interstellar artifacts near the earth and not just radio or laser signals of exoplanets. It all looks like common sense, but common sense is not always common in the echo rooms of the dominant current.
About the author
AVI LOEB is the project manager Galileo, founding director of the Harvard University-Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former president of the Department of Astronomy of Harvard University (2011-2020). He is a former member of the Council of the Chairman of Councilors on Sciences and Technology and former Chairman of the Board of Directors of Physics and Astronomy of National Academies. He is the successful author of “Alien: The first sign of intelligent life beyond the earth“And co-author of the manual”Life in the cosmos“, Both published in 2021. The pocket edition of his new book, entitled”Interstellar“Was published in August 2024.