{"id":1204,"date":"2020-09-15T14:53:25","date_gmt":"2020-09-15T18:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/?p=1204"},"modified":"2020-09-15T15:07:26","modified_gmt":"2020-09-15T19:07:26","slug":"on-aliens-inductive-risk-and-disappointing-my-earlier-self","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/2020\/09\/15\/on-aliens-inductive-risk-and-disappointing-my-earlier-self\/","title":{"rendered":"On aliens, inductive risk, and disappointing my earlier self"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is evidence for the hypothesis that I am not a cartoonist, a conclusion which would be a great disappointment to my third-grade self.<span id='easy-footnote-1-1204' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/2020\/09\/15\/on-aliens-inductive-risk-and-disappointing-my-earlier-self\/#easy-footnote-bottom-1-1204' title=' Evidence against the hypothesis is &lt;a href=&quot;http:\/\/www.ninjaverses.com\/comic.php?d=20080910&quot;&gt;old and inconclusive&lt;\/a&gt;.'><sup>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A philosopher might write <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/job\/paper.php?item=foroneandall\">a ponderous paragraph<\/a> like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>[C]onsider the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Let P be the proposition that there is intelligent life on some other world which could be detected by a systematic SETI project. Direct evidence for P is lacking. &#8230; However, it is plausible to think that SETI would be pursued with greater vigor and ingenuity by scientists who believe P. Since alleged alien signals should not be accepted too readily, it would be good to have some scientists who believe \u223cP and who would subject the signals to critical, sceptical scrutiny. So the community might maximize its chances of identifying alien civilizations (if there are any) by having some members who already think that there are (or probably are) such civilizations and others who already think that there are (or probably are) none.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A cartoonist, on the other hand, might <a href=\"https:\/\/xkcd.com\/2359\/\">draw something<\/a> like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"557\" height=\"688\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/20200915evidence_of_alien_life.png?resize=557%2C688&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"XKCD cartoon displaying different degrees of caution in response to evidence of alien life.\" class=\"wp-image-1205\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/20200915evidence_of_alien_life.png?w=557&amp;ssl=1 557w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/20200915evidence_of_alien_life.png?resize=243%2C300&amp;ssl=1 243w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 557px) 85vw, 557px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/xkcd.com\/2359\/\">XKCD<\/a><span id='easy-footnote-2-1204' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/2020\/09\/15\/on-aliens-inductive-risk-and-disappointing-my-earlier-self\/#easy-footnote-bottom-2-1204' title=' Copyright Randall Monroe and used under a CC by-nc 2.5 license.'><sup>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The fact that the philosopher and cartoonist both have degrees in physics makes this as perfect a natural experiment as one could hope for.<span id='easy-footnote-3-1204' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/2020\/09\/15\/on-aliens-inductive-risk-and-disappointing-my-earlier-self\/#easy-footnote-bottom-3-1204' title=' Besides being in different media, the two are making different claims. The cartoonist suggests that there&amp;#8217;s a level of caution which is appropriate for all scientists, whereas the philosopher claims that it&amp;#8217;s best for the community if individual scientists react with different levels of caution. End pedantic footnote.'><sup>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is evidence for the hypothesis that I am not a cartoonist, a conclusion which would be a great disappointment to my third-grade self.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[63,41],"class_list":["post-1204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-et-cetera","tag-aliens","tag-comics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7PjAo-jq","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1204"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1210,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1204\/revisions\/1210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}