Seth Shostak on Zoo Hypothesis

[Spaceman spiff]

'Zoo hypothesis' may explain why we haven't seen any space aliens

By Seth Shostak

Ask your friends why scientists have failed to find extraterrestrials, and you can be sure at least one of them will offer the following answer: Humans are not worthy.

We’re flawed beings. We routinely threaten one other, not to mention other species and the environment. That doesn’t sound very civilized, and it offers a plausible explanation for the lack of alien contact. Perhaps the extraterrestrials know we’re here but don’t want to deal with us — either by communicating or by visiting.

This idea is endlessly appealing. It’s also old. In 1973, MIT radio astronomer John Ball published a paper in which he suggested that the lack of success in uncovering cosmic company wasn’t due to a lack of aliens. It was because these otherworldly sentients have agreed to a hands-off policy.

They’ve kept their distance not because we’re imperfect, but because of our right to pursue our own destiny. Diversity is something that everyone in the cosmos is assumed to value, so life-bearing worlds should be left to their own evolutionary development.

It may occur to you that Ball’s idea sounds something like Star Trek’s famous “prime directive,” which forbade spacefaring members of the Federation from doing anything that might interfere with other cultures or civilizations, even if that interference was well intentioned. The MIT astronomer was proposing that we’ve failed to make contact with aliens not because we’re unworthy, but because we are worthy — the way endangered eels are.

Ball went further, proposing that we may live in a metaphorical zoo — a kind of cosmic Eden. The aliens of the galaxy have somehow arranged things so that our planet is shielded from them by one-way bars: They can observe us, but we can’t observe them.

One nice thing about this conjecture is that it offers a solution to a long-standing puzzle known as Fermi’s Paradox. Broached nearly 70 years ago by physicist Enrico Fermi, it rests on the fact that the universe is very old. Consequently, if intelligent life is commonplace, then some of it is surely advanced enough to have colonized the entire galaxy. We should see evidence of aliens everywhere. The fact that we don’t might be explained by Ball’s hypothesis — we’re being deliberately isolated.

The zoo hypothesis has been in the news recently because it also provides justification for an activity known as METI, short for Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Simply stated, METI practitioners transmit radio signals into space with the hope of provoking a response from any aliens who might pick them up. In 2017, a Norwegian antenna was used to beam a message to a star system 12 light-years away.

Earlier this month, this whole enterprise was discussed by researchers at a meeting in Paris. Douglas Vakoch, the president of METI International, a San Francisco-based organization that organized the Norwegian transmission, invoked the zoo hypothesis as a possible justification for broadcasting. After all, if the hypothesis is correct, then it’s understandable why our efforts to find signals from space have been unsuccessful. We’ve been mindlessly pacing our Earthly cage while the extraterrestrials maintain their distance and keep watch.

But as Vakoch argues, this one-way scenario might be changed. If a zoo animal suddenly starts barking through the bars, saying “I’m here and I think you’re out there,” those on the other side might respond.

Simply put, METI’s deliberate transmissions might lead to a discovery of cosmic company because the broadcasts would tell the aliens that we no longer require their helicopter parenting. We’re adult enough for them to get in touch.

Still, the zoo hypothesis is dependent on Earthly life being really important — our existence is apparently significant enough that it dictates the behavior of societies that might be millions or billions of years more advanced. And Ball’s idea requires a galaxy-wide compact to keep all evidence of intelligent inhabitants — radio signals, laser flashes end even the construction of easily detected megastructures — from being visible by earthlings. How would you do that, even if you’re a highly advanced alien?

In addition, the idea that all extraterrestrials are keen to keep the evolution of our planet free and natural sounds odd, self-centered and a bit too altruistic. Let’s face it: The prime directive has never been in fashion with us. Indeed, we seem to prefer the opposite: On Earth, we interfere with one another’s cultural development all the time.

So the zoo hypothesis seems more than a little forced. On the other hand, I have to admit that it’s cagey.

 

[nivek]

A zoo to the keepers would be a prison to the prisoners...

...

 

[Kchoo]

Correcting typos:

With all the diversity of life on a single planet... from bacteria to the octopus, dung beetles, ant colonies, mamals, birds, reptiles and so many variations of fungi and plants- I have absolutely no doubt Earth is a testimony to possibilities of life anywhere in the universe.

They are just too far away and we can't travel there.

Unless we can find other life in our solar system... (fungi on mars) ((which may have been brought there by a viking lander by accident, who knows,right?))

Until we can see it for certain we will not have the proof, unless they can travel to us and provide the proof for us. However, if they can already do that, (and I am sure some can), then yes the zoo hypothisis may make sense.

Or maybe they simply do not like Earth for some reason.

Or maybe WE are viewed as the Aliens.

 

[nivek]

The Zoo Hypothesis or Nothing: A Possible Solution to the Fermi Paradox​

The Fermi paradox is the apparent contradiction between the expectation that intelligent life should be common in the Universe and the lack of any evidence for it.

One possible solution to this puzzle is the zoo hypothesis, which proposes that extraterrestrial civilizations exist but are deliberately hiding from us, perhaps to avoid interfering with our development or to observe us as part of a cosmic experiment.

The zoo hypothesis was first suggested by John Ball in 1973, who argued that any sufficiently advanced civilization would have the ability to conceal its presence from less advanced ones, and that this might be a common ethical or practical choice among such civilizations.

He wrote: “They are content to leave us alone, perhaps until we reach some level of maturity or technology at which point they will reveal themselves to us”.

There are several possible reasons why an alien civilization might choose to adopt the zoo hypothesis. One is the prime directive, a concept popularized by the science fiction series Star Trek, which states that no interference should be made with the natural evolution of other cultures or societies.

Another is the precautionary principle, which suggests that any contact with an unknown civilization might have unpredictable and potentially harmful consequences, both for them and for us.

A third is the scientific curiosity, which implies that observing a civilization without influencing it might provide valuable insights into its history, culture, psychology, and biology.

However, there are also several problems and challenges with the zoo hypothesis. One is the coordination problem, which asks how multiple alien civilizations could agree on a common policy of hiding from us, and how they could enforce it among themselves.

Another is the motivation problem, which questions why an alien civilization would care about us at all, and why they would not have any interest in communicating or interacting with us.

A third is the leakage problem, which points out that hiding from us might not be easy or foolproof, and that there might be signs of their existence or activities that we could detect with our current or future technology.

One way to test the zoo hypothesis is to look for such signs of leakage, such as artificial radio signals, megastructures, spacecrafts, probes, or artifacts.

This is the main goal of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), which has been scanning the sky for decades without success.

However, this does not necessarily mean that the zoo hypothesis is false, as it might be possible that alien civilizations are using more advanced or stealthy methods of communication or engineering that we cannot detect or recognize.

An additional way to test the zoo hypothesis is to try to break out of it, by sending messages or signals that might attract their attention or provoke their response.

This is the main idea behind METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence), which has been sending intentional transmissions to nearby stars since 1974. But this approach is controversial and risky, as it might expose us to hostile or harmful aliens, or violate their rules or preferences.

The zoo hypothesis is one of the most plausible solutions to the Fermi paradox, but it is also one of the most difficult and uncertain to verify. It implies that we are not alone in the Universe, but we are isolated and ignorant of it.

The only way to find out if it is true or not is to keep exploring and searching for evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence, either by looking for signs of their presence or by trying to contact them directly.

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