From Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi Movies by Andrew Maynard
“…okay to go…”
―Ellie Arroway
On Wednesday, June 17, 1981, Carl Sagan’s Cosmos had its premiere
on British TV. Since its launch, the series has become the stuff of
legend, so much so that I’ve lost count of the people I know who
were inspired to pursue a career in science after watching it.
Sadly, I wasn’t one of them.
Back then, my parents had a nagging worry that the TV my siblings
and I watched was stunting our development. As a result, we
periodically went through patches as a family of having no television
in the house. This was complicated somewhat by my grandfather,
failing to understand the reason why we were occasionally
television-less, bringing us replacement sets as fast as my parents
disposed of them. Despite this, we still had extended periods where
I was largely cut off from popular TV culture. And this included the
first run of Cosmos.
Fortunately, I managed to find my way into a successful career as a
scientist without Sagan’s guiding hand. But this didn’t stop me being
drawn into his world through his movie Contact later on, and the
science fiction novel it’s based on.
Sagan was a charismatic and often polarizing scientist, and one
whose vision extended far beyond the laboratory. He understood
and deeply respected the process of science. But in his thinking,
science was about far more than simply learning about the world we
live in. To Sagan, science was a way of seeing and making sense of
the universe. His was a vision of science that extended far beyond
textbook methodologies and tedious experiments, and it’s one that
continues to inspire scientists, engineers, and technologists to this
day. It’s also a vision that runs deep through what is perhaps one
of the most respected and revered science fiction movies among
people who make a living through science: Contact.[^177]
Contact is a movie about the nature and wonder of science that’s
driven along by the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence. At the
center of the story is Dr. Ellie Arroway (played by Jodie Foster),
an astronomer who is driven in her search for extraterrestrial life,
but who has a scientist’s eye for testing every scrap of evidence to
make sure that her biases aren’t blinding her. She’s smart, articulate,
driven, and has a complex relationship with her peers—much like
Sagan himself.
From an early age, Arroway has been obsessed with the idea of
intelligent life beyond Earth, and as the story begins, we find her at
the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, looking for evidence of
extraterrestrial signals from other star systems. The setting echoes
Sagan’s early work on the search for extraterrestrial life, using the
same telescope. And, like Sagan, Arroway is both ridiculed and
disappointed in her research, but carries on regardless.
While at Arecibo, Arroway meets a young and charismatic religious
leader, Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey), and butts heads with
him intellectually while falling into bed with him physically. It’s
also at Arecibo that we see Arroway first having a run-in with the
Director of the National Science Foundation, David Drumlin (Tom
Skerritt). Arroway is funded through the NSF. Yet Drumlin believes
her energy should be focused on what he considers (at the time) to
be more productive scientific questions, and as a result, he cuts her
funding, while being painfully patronizing and manipulative toward
her in the process.
Not to be beaten, Arroway seeks out other funding sources for
her research, and ends up attracting the patronage of the megaentrepreneur S. R. Haddon (played by John Hurt). Haddon is
With Haddon’s support, Arroway switches her research to using the
Very Large Array radio telescope, or VLA, in New Mexico (another
instrument that actually exists), yet Drumlin once again interferes
by denying her access to this NSF-funded facility. Just as Arroway’s
hopes begin to fade, she detects a strong signal from what appears
to be beyond the solar system. As the significance of the finding
becomes clear, people start trying to take the discovery away from
her. First the security agencies move in, paranoid of what they don’t
understand. Then Drumlin steps in and deftly assumes ownership of
the discovery, leveraging his position and standing to get what he
sees as the opportunity of a lifetime.
Meanwhile, the discovery has attracted large crowds to the area
outside the VLA, and there’s a massive party vibe going on as people
use the discovery as an excuse to let their hair down and have some
fun. But, within the crowd, there are also religious fanatics who
clearly feel threatened by the signals being received. While this is
going on, the team at the VLA continue to find more detail in the
signal, including what look like blueprints for building an alien
device. As the significance of this finding sinks in, the question of
how to respond to the discovery is kicked up to the White House,
and Drumlin assumes the role of lead scientist, while Arroway is
downgraded to being just one of his team.
At this point, Palmer Joss—now a religious advisor to the President
of the United States—comes back into the story. Joss is brought
in to provide advice on how the presence of the extraterrestrial
signal potentially threatens long-held beliefs on humans’ “special
relationship” with their various gods. At one point, a member of
Congress even comes out with, “We don’t even know if they [the
aliens] believe in God.”
As various experts and advisors congregate in Washington, DC,
to discuss next steps, Arroway is reunited with Palmer Joss, and
they quickly fall into a relationship where their physical and
intellectual attraction to each other is complicated by seemingly
irreconcilable differences on science and belief. Meanwhile, as the
assembled experts grapple with deciphering the content of the
alien signal, they hit a wall. And, once again, Arroway’s patron S.
R. Haddon provides her with a way of getting back into the game.
Drumlin’s team of experts have been struggling to make sense of
Contact: Living By More Than Science Alone
impressed by Arroway’s passion, vision, and ability, and decides to
invest in her and her work.
the blueprints transmitted in the signal, but the mega-smart, megarich Haddon has deciphered them. And to back up his investment in
Arroway, he passes the relevant information on to her.
With the key to the code, it rapidly becomes clear that the signal
contains plans to build a device that will transport a single human
being through space, and presumably to the star system of Vega
from whence it originated. Arroway is desperate to be selected to
make this journey, but is pretty sure that Drumlin will block her yet
again. It turns out, though, that Drumlin has other plans, and has
put himself forward as the person best qualified to be the first to
meet an alien species.
Because deciding who is best equipped to represent all of humanity
when meeting the aliens is such a momentous decision, a shortlist
of twelve candidates is compiled—with the final choice to be made
by an international panel. Arroway makes this shortlist, and as
the selection process continues, it finally comes down to her and
Drumlin. In making their decision, the selection panel hold a final
public hearing with both candidates. There’s only one problem; the
selection panel includes Arroway’s lover and intellectual opponent,
Palmer Joss, and he doesn’t want to lose her.
Arroway aces her interview until Joss asks, “Do you believe in God,
Dr. Arroway?” She replies honestly with, “As a scientist, I rely on
empirical evidence. And in this matter, I don’t believe there’s data
either way.” Drumlin, on the other hand, when asked the same
question, gives a politician’s answer, and tells the panel what they
want to hear. As a result, he’s chosen over Arroway.
As the launch of the alien device draws nearer, Drumlin, who is now
cast in the role of public science-explainer-in-chief, takes part in a
publicly broadcast test-run of the system. Drumlin begins to emerge
at this point as a charismatic science communicator and popularizer,
and is slightly disparaged by his scientific colleagues for it, a rather
complex nod to the pushback Sagan himself received for his own
public persona. On the video feed for the test, Arroway recognizes a
religious activist within a secure area, and urgently warns Drumlin
over the communications headset. Drumlin confronts the person,
but it’s too late. The extremist reveals he’s wearing explosives and
detonates them, killing Drumlin, and spectacularly destroying the
machine.
This appears to be the end of the line for humanity’s first attempt
to make contact with an alien intelligence, until Haddon steps
As the pod is launched, Arroway finds herself catapulted through
space, eventually ending on a palm-surrounded beach in a scene
that mimics a picture from her childhood. Here, she sees a figure
approaching her, which resolves into her father, long dead at this
point, and the inspiration for her life’s work. He explains that what
she is seeing is simply a representation that the aliens thought
would feel familiar to her. In their brief conversation, she learns
that she’s traveled through a series of wormholes to an interstellar
junction, that this massive network of interstellar transportation
conduits was built by a previous civilization, and that there’s a long
history of emerging civilizations being introduced to their galactic
neighbors by building machines like the one Arroway has been
transported by.
Following the encounter, Arroway is transported back to Earth, only
to discover that, to the Earth-bound observers, no time has passed.
To these observers, the pod she was in simply dropped straight
through the machine and into the net below; the experiment was
a failure.
Confused, Arroway explains what she experienced. But she has no
proof, only her knowledge that, to her, it was real. And this is where
Sagan and the movie begin to explore the relationship between
science and belief. Arroway’s journey as a scientist starts from her
unshakable conviction that she can only understand the world by
using evidence to test what she believes to be true, and having the
discipline to ditch beliefs that don’t stand up to the test, no matter
how compelling they are. Yet the movie ends with her believing
in something that she has no evidence for, other than her own
experience. Much like the religious experience that transformed
Palmer Joss’ life, Arroway has an unshakable conviction that what
she experienced was real. Yet she has no proof with which to
Contact: Living By More Than Science Alone
in once again and shows Arroway a satellite image of a remote
location in Japan, and a second machine. As the world is informed
of this backup machine, Arroway becomes the person chosen to
be transported in it. She’s installed into the machine’s pod, and
the countdown to launch commences. As the alien machine ramps
up, communication with Arroway becomes increasingly faint,
until one of her colleagues—Kent Clark, a blind scientist who first
identified the presence of additional information in the signal from
Vega (played by William Fichtner)—manages to pick her up, faintly
repeating “…okay to go…okay to go….”
convince others. And so, she finds herself in the same boat as Joss,
and his belief that experience and hope transcend proof.
Yet, as the consummate scientist, Arroway doesn’t expect others to
take her word on faith. Instead, she’s driven to look for evidence to
support her experience, not out of despair, but out of the conviction
that, if what she experienced was true, there will be evidence to
be found.
What she doesn’t know is that this evidence exists, but is being kept
from her. Unbeknown to Arroway, the video from her pod came
back blank. But instead of just a few seconds of blank screens as
the pod fell through the machine, it contained nineteen minutes of
nothing, the same amount of time Ellie claimed she had been away.
Yet, despite not knowing about this, Arroway has the strength of
her convictions and the discipline of her science to support her, and
the movie ultimately leaves us with an affirmation of the power of
combining science and belief to better understand ourselves, and
our place within the universe.
While Contact is clearly science fiction, it is, in many ways, a
homage to the scientific process, and to the scientifically rigorous
search for extraterrestrial life. In the movie, Ellie Arroway’s character
is largely based on the real life astronomer Jill Tarter, and the film
as a whole draws extensively on Sagan’s own experiences. This is a
movie that celebrates the use of reason and evidence to expand our
understanding of the universe. Yet it also acknowledges that reason
needs to be combined with imagination if we’re to truly appreciate
who we are, and the world we inhabit. And it does this by grappling
with the tensions between science and belief head-on.
It doesn’t take much to realize that there’s an uneasy relationship
between science and religion; one that spills over into how we think
about and develop new technologies. To some, religion implies an
adherence to a belief in how things are in spite of evidence, rather
than an understanding that’s based on evidence. Because of this,
there is a sense that science versus belief is an either/or option.
This tension between science and religion, of course, goes back
centuries. Galileo, for instance, is often revered for challenging
received religious dogma about the solar system with cold, hard
evidence. And he’s just one person in a science-hall-of-fame of
Putting religion aside for a moment, “belief” is something that
we seem predisposed to as humans. In part, it’s is a product of
the ways our minds have evolved to survive in a complex and
dangerous world. And it draws on our exquisite ability to interpret
our surroundings and our place in them in ways that are useful for
keeping us alive, but are not necessarily grounded in reality.
As a species, we have a whole arsenal of mental short-cuts, or
heuristics, and cognitive biases that work together to keep us safe
and prevent our conscious intellect from leading us into danger.
Through these evolved traits, we’ve become wonderfully adept at
feeling like the decisions we make have a rational basis. And as part
of this, we’ve developed an incredible ability to see patterns and
meaning in just about everything.
These patterns that our mind “sees” in the world around us often
provide us with early warnings of danger, or early indications of
benefits. They’re how our brains learn to make sense of the world,
by avoiding what could harm us, and being attracted to what
could be good for us. And part of our success as a species is being
incredibly good at this—so good in fact that our technologies are,
in many cases, still catching up with the human brain’s ability to
intuitively detect and decode patterns, whether in the environment,
in trends, or in behaviors. Yet, our cognitive traits all too easily
mislead us into misinterpreting what we see, hear, and experience as
being true, despite evidence to the contrary.[^178]
With this biological drive to find patterns and meaning in
everything, it’s not surprising that we end up being driven by what
we believe to be true (or what our evolved brains tell us must be
so) and creating gods (or aliens) to justify this. From a rational
perspective, it’s easy to dismiss such tendencies as being mere selfdelusion. And yet, the nature of belief is too complex, too ingrained
in us, to be dismissed through simple logic. It’s so much a part
Contact: Living By More Than Science Alone
figures who have dared to question deeply held beliefs through
experimentation and the rigor of scientific discovery. Yet, as Contact
attempts to explore, this relationship between science and belief is
more complex than is sometimes assumed.
of us that even the most avowedly logical person reaches a point
where they have to depart from the world of evidence, and take a
leap of faith, realizing that, in some cases, the value of something
transcends whether it can be proven, or the degree to which
evidence-based analysis supports it. Even though faith and science
are often pitted against each other, I suspect that a surprising
number of scientists have their own beliefs that define who they are
and what they strive for, regardless of any evidence-based analysis.
In effect, life and meaning are about more than science alone,
whether you believe in a higher “being,” or a spiritual dimension, or
simply understand belief to be an emergent biological property that
defines who and what we are.
In Contact, Sagan wrestles with this seeming paradox at the nexus
of science and belief through the relationship between Ellie Arroway
and Joss Palmer. Importantly, he sets the issue up, not as science
versus dogma, but as understanding the relationship between
science and meaning.
At the beginning of the movie, Ellie represents rational, evidencebased science. She inhabits a world based on what is testable.
And she is intellectually honest; she’s willing to sacrifice what
she hopes is true in the cold light of evidence to the contrary. In
contrast, Palmer inhabits a world of faith. He lives his life on the
deep conviction that there is meaning beyond what is testable and
validatable by science. He deeply believes that there is more to
humans, and more to the universe we inhabit, that lies beyond the
ken of scientists and their empiricism.
Yet, as their experiences through the movie expose their true
characters, we see that they are more alike than different. Ellie is
driven by a belief that there must be alien intelligence. She doesn’t
use the language of belief and faith, but there’s something more
that she’s striving for. Ellie is on a journey of discovery. Palmer, on
the other hand, is a person whose faith completes him. It fills a
need in his life and provides a sense of wholeness, and it helps him
make sense of what otherwise would make no sense. He knows
where he’s going, and doesn’t need science to point him in the right
direction. Yet, at the end of the movie, both Ellie and Palmer are in a
similar position, believing in something that they cannot prove, but
that nevertheless defines them.
This said, there’s also a profound difference between Ellie and
Palmer. While Palmer represents believers who seek to proselytize—
But—and this is perhaps where the Ellie metaphor diverges most
from faith-based belief—this way of seeing the world requires rigor
in how we test our beliefs. It needs honesty in our willingness to
drop ideas that don’t align with evidence. And it depends on our
ability to distinguish wishful thinking from reality. And this brings us
to a recurring theme in Contact: Occam’s Razor.
William of Occam was a fourteenth-century English philosopher,
friar, and theologian. From historic accounts, he was sharp thinker,
and a somewhat controversial religious figure in his time. Yet, these
days, he is best known for the scientific rule of thumb that bears
his name.
Occam was, without doubt, a religious man. But in his theological
work, he challenged people to question the validity of complex
explanations for things where simpler ones worked equally well. It
wasn’t until after his death, though, that people began to attach his
name to this type of thinking.
The idea that simpler explanations are more likely to be true than
more complex ones goes as far back as Greek philosophers like
Aristotle—probably farther, given the somewhat obvious nature of
the observation. Yet it’s Occam’s name that we now associate with a
“simpler is probably truer” approach to making sense of the world.
Contact: Living By More Than Science Alone
to persuade others to take on their beliefs—Ellie’s mission is to
provide evidence to support her belief. And this, to me, gets to the
heart of the role of belief in science. Like many real-life scientists,
creativity, imagination, and believing in what lies beyond proof
are integral to who Ellie is. She is a complex person who is in part
defined by her science, but is much more than her science alone.
Ellie is a metaphor for the place of science in society, as we strive
to understand our relationship with our future and the universe
we’re part of. Through her character, we understand that science is
a way of knowing ourselves and the world around us that doesn’t
preclude faith and belief, but is a means of responding to them. This
is not an either/or philosophy of faith versus science; neither is it
a rigid set of rules about what is right and what is wrong. Rather,
it’s a way of seeing the world and ourselves that, when combined
with humility, respect for others, curiosity and wonder, can be
positively transformative.
Ironically, Occam’s intellectual incisiveness was focused on making
sense of faith-based interpretations of the world and how we should
live in it. As a Christian, he was a believer in God (publicly at least),
and committed to interpreting God’s will and actions, through what
was written in sacred texts and what was observable in the world
around him. He was a firm believer that the “ways of God” are not
open to reason; he’d have probably got along well with Palmer Joss.
At the same time, he was no fool. He realized that, where two or
more explanations for something existed, the simplest, least fanciful
of them was more likely to be closer to the truth.
This is, of course, something that every parent and teacher knows
well. “The dog ate my homework” really struggles to compete
with alternatives like “I forgot.” It’s this realization that simpler
explanations are more likely to be true that has led to Occam’s
Razor becoming part of the canon of twenty-first-century scientific
practice. There are multiple definitions of the Razor (so-called
because it helps cut away misleading ideas to reveal the truth), but
most of these come down to stating that, when there are multiple
explanations for something, the one that depends on the fewest
assumptions is more likely to be the right one. Simplicity, in this
case, comes about because we have to make up less stuff in order to
explain something.
A more direct description of Occam’s Razor is that, if an explanation
for something involves wild stories and fantastical ideas that cannot
be tested, it’s probably not right. This is how Ellie invokes it when
she first meets Palmer. To her, there wasn’t any point in talking
about faith and belief, because it failed Occam’s Razor at the first
hurdle. Faith, to her, especially faith in a higher being, relied
on too many untestable assumptions where there were simpler
explanations. And, while she discovered that life is often not that
simple, the principle remains a powerful way of sifting out attractive
but dangerously misleading ideas from those that better reflect
reality.
So how does Occam’s Razor apply to technological innovation?
Through the previous chapters, we’ve touched on emerging
technologies that could transform our lives in the future: genetic
engineering, gene editing, mind and body enhancements, artificial
intelligence, nanotechnology, geoengineering, and a whole lot more.
Each offers the promise of a vastly better future if used wisely.
Here, Occam’s rule of thumb becomes especially helpful. Just as it
helps weed out fanciful explanations of how the world works from
more reasonable ones, it can also help separate fantasy from more
likely outcomes as we think about the future. For instance, we can
make a shrewd guess that future scenarios that depend on more
assumptions and more fantastical ideas are less likely to come about
than those that use fewer assumptions and are less fantastical.
This simple rule of thumb becomes increasingly relevant as we
invest hard money in science and technology with the intention
of creating a better future. It’s often when there’s money on the
table that the hard-nosed thinking starts, and technology is no
exception. So, given the option of investing a sizable wad of cash in
avoiding “gray goo,” for instance, or in preparing for the advent of
superintelligence (both of which depend on a house-of-cards stack
of assumptions), or investing a similar amount in avoiding health
and environmental harm from new materials, Occam’s Razor would
probably favor the latter. It’s not that gray goo or superintelligence
don’t have some probability of occurring (although it may be
vanishingly small). It’s simply that, because they depend on an
increasingly tenuous number of untested assumptions, supporting
them becomes more an act of faith than of reason.
Yet there’s a catch here, which is why Occam’s Razor should never
be considered as more than an aid to decision-making. Just because
there are simpler, less assumption-filled alternatives to imagined
future scenarios, it doesn’t mean that more complex options will
turn out to be wrong. What Occam’s Razor states is that there is a
lower probability of options that rely on more assumptions being
true, but not a zero probability. And this leaves the door open to
more complex, more fanciful possibilities being plausible, even
though they’re possibilities that have a much lower chance of
being right.
In Contact, this is the hope that Ellie hangs on to as she continues
her search for extraterrestrial intelligence. She knows that,
Contact: Living By More Than Science Alone
But each also comes with tremendous risks if used irresponsibly.
And this, together with the multiplicative dangers of what happens
when these technologies merge and converge, demands forethought
around how to use emerging science and technology responsibly.
Yet here we face a conundrum, in that the best we can do in
planning for the future is to make educated guesses based on what’s
happened in the past, and what we know in the present.
intellectually, the cards are stacked against her, that all she has to go
on is her conviction that she experienced something real. But, rather
than allow the same Occam’s Razor she used earlier with Palmer to
defeat her, she is determined to discover something that will defeat
the razor’s edge itself.
This, to me, gets to the very core of science as a human endeavor.
Critical thinking alone is almost inhuman in its cold impartiality. On
the other hand, creativity on its own leads down a path of fantasy
and delusion. But when the two are combined, we have a powerful
way of using science and the imagination to find meaning in the
universe we’re a part of, and to chart a course toward a future that
celebrates who we are and what we might become.
This is what we see playing out in Contact, and why to me it’s
such a powerful reflection of the soul at the heart of science, not
simply the process. It’s also where we see the “humanity” of science
beginning to shine. This is where science emerges as a disciplined
pathway to awe and wonder, and a rigorous way to develop new
knowledge that enriches lives and empowers people. Here, it’s the
humanity of science that also leads us to not just ask if we can
do something, but whether we should, and, if we do, what the
consequences might be, together with how we might ensure that
they work to the good of society rather than against it.
As we’ve seen throughout this book, these are tough questions that
demand careful thought and input from everyone with a stake in
the game. When we’re dealing with science that potentially touches
everyone, we all become stakeholders in the process. We’ve seen
this with technologies that potentially change who we are: cognitive
enhancers, genetic modification, body augmentation, and brainmachine interfaces, for instance. We’ve also seen it in technologies
that might transcend us and lead to life that is beyond what we
consider “human,” including intelligent machines. But what about
technologies that may lead to the discovery of life that didn’t even
evolve on Earth?
In 1961, a group of ten scientists got together to discuss the search
for extraterrestrial life—among them were Carl Sagan and the
astrophysicist Frank Drake. What came out of that meeting was an
equation that the group felt gave the best stab at estimating (at least
to an order of magnitude) the number of intelligent civilizations
The Drake Equation is a wonderful piece of scientific back-of-theenvelope mathematical speculation that any physicist should feel
immediately at home with. The original equation consists of seven
factors, or things the group thought were important in estimating
the number of intelligent and contactable civilizations. Because
they had no evidence for what values to give any of these factors,
they guessed. Or, to be more precise, they came up with order of
magnitude estimates.
At that first meeting of what came to be known as the Order of
the Dolphin (the group had a somewhat offbeat sense of humor),
they estimated that there were probably between a thousand and a
hundred million intelligent civilizations in our galaxy alone. Even
allowing for the rather large range, this is a massive number. And
this is in just one of the hundreds of billions of galaxies in the
universe. Since then, the Drake Equation has been modified and
new estimates for the various factors made. But the reality remains
that, even with conservative estimates, the galaxy we live in is
so vast that it is almost inconceivable that the conditions haven’t
occurred elsewhere for intelligent life to evolve.
To Sagan, Drake, and others, this back-of-the-envelope estimate
drove their belief that we are not alone. Indeed, it plays into Sagan
stating that, “The universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, seems
like an awful waste of space” (something that both Ellie and her
father repeat in Contact). The professional and scientific intuition
of the Order of the Dolphin suggested that intelligent life existed
beyond Earth, and all that was needed to prove it was the evidence
that would inevitably come from better science.
We’re still looking for the evidence that Sagan hoped for. But
over the past few years, there have been profound changes in
our understanding of the universe that have gotten us closer to
realizing that we are probably not alone. And topping these out is
the discovery of large numbers of planets circling other suns in the
galaxy, or “exoplanets.”
Contact: Living By More Than Science Alone
within our galaxy that are capable of communicating with us. Over
a couple of intense days, the group discussed what factors would
affect the possibility of planets existing that could harbor intelligent
life, the likelihood of intelligence emerging, and the chances of them
getting a signal to us that we detected. And what emerged was the
now-famous Drake Equation.
The earliest evidence for exoplanets dates back to the 1980s. But
the game-changer came when NASA launched the Kepler space
observatory in 2009. Kepler enabled the search for planets around
distant stars by measuring reductions in light from these far-off
suns as orbiting planets came between the star and the Earth.
And the results were eye-popping. At the time of writing, NASA’s
exoplanet exploration program had confirmed the existence of over
3,700 exoplanets in the galaxy, with more than 4,400 additional
possible candidates.
But that’s not all. So far, over eight hundred of those planets could
be similar to Earth.
To someone who grew up reading science fiction and studying
science, this is a jaw-dropping discovery. And we’ve only just started
on this scientific journey. We are just beginning to realize that we
live in a universe that’s rich with Earth-like planets which could be
home to living organisms, and possibly, intelligent life.
Sadly, Sagan died in 1996—a year before Contact was released,
and thirteen years before Kepler was launched. But had he been
alive, he would have been thrilled at how the scales are beginning
to tip toward the likelihood of life existing elsewhere. Yet, even if
the universe is teeming with life, the possibilities of us detecting
alien beings are small, given the times and distances involved.
The chances of making contact with an alien intelligence are even
smaller. For distant stars, there’s a good chance that if we ever did
receive a signal, the beings that sent it would have long since moved
on. Yet this convergence between dreams and science does shine a
spotlight on the question of what we would do if we did discover
alien intelligence, and how our world would change as a result.
I must confess, I have a sneaky suspicion that it would be a sevenday wonder; a “that’s nice—what’s for dinner” type of event. And the
reason is simply that, in my experience, we humans have a nearinfinite inability to remain awed by new discoveries.
This may sound a little cynical, but just think of how quickly the
awesome becomes the mundane in our lives. Start with the mindblowing biology that makes us what we are, the unimaginable
vastness of the universe, the majesty of our neighboring planets, the
incredible ingenuity of nature. And then there are the inventions that
we rely on every day: Cars, planes, smartphones, computers, modern
agriculture. We live in a stunning, awe-inspiring, pretty damn
This amazing ability to go from “wow” to “meh” in a matter of days
turns out to be a really important survival mechanism. Without it,
we’d all be walking around with our mouths open, forgetting to look
where we’re going. Because of this, I suspect that we’ll see the same
wow-to-meh trend if we ever detect evidence of alien intelligence.
Sure, such a discovery will be life-changing to start with, at least
until the next seven-day wonder comes along. But soon, the
everyday realities of life will swamp the larger significance of the
discovery, much as they swamp the discovery that, unless we change
how we behave, the earth’s climate’s going to overheat, or that we’re
building urban sprawls in areas prone to environmental disasters, or
that our eating habits are slowly killing us.
Of course, there is the question of how such a discovery would
affect religious beliefs, and organized religion more broadly. Among
intellectuals who like to think about these things, the question of
what happens if we threaten God’s existence, either through our
own inventions or through the discovery that we’re not special,
is an important one. It’s so important, in fact, that academics love
to speculate about what people think about the risks of “playing
God” (if we’re creating life in the lab), or “debunking God” (if we
discover that we’re not special). But even here, I suspect that the
religious response to a signal from the stars will ultimately be
somewhat ambivalent. In part, I think this will be the case because
previous indications of life beyond Earth haven’t had that much of
an impact, even before they’ve been disproved. But mainly I suspect
that this will be because religious beliefs, like people, are incredibly
adaptable to the reality they exist in.
This is, of course, all highly speculative. Assuming that we are not
alone, the sheer vastness of the universe does make it unlikely
that a signal from another intelligence will reach us before we’ve
blown ourselves up or suffered some equally gruesome fate. But, at
the same time, the question of how we might react to discovering
we’re not the only life around is a profoundly important one, not
necessarily because of the possibility of life existing beyond Earth,
but because we’re edging closer to creating our own “aliens” here on
Earth. Whether through genetic engineering, AI, or advanced human
augmentation, it’s quite possible that we’ll one day be faced with
something that has not evolved in the conventional way, and yet is,
in every way, alive.
Contact: Living By More Than Science Alone
amazing world, with a million and one things that are just as mindblowing as discovering aliens. And yet most of us simply don’t care.
The question is, when we do reach this technological
breakthrough—and we’re well on the way to achieving this—how
will we respond to these home-grown “aliens”?
My fear is that these will be yet another passing wonder. If so,
this would be a problem, for two reasons. First, while we may be
ambivalent toward claims that someone’s created an artificial cell/
plant/animal, or that they’ve developed a smarter/more intelligent
computer, these will change our lives. And the less the majority of us
care about this, the more we give those that do care the opportunity
to do what they like, even if it ends up harming us. It’s all well and
good hoping that scientists and technologists act responsibly. But
responsibility here also means that we collectively need to give a
damn about the future we’re creating, and whether it’s the future we
want for ourselves and for generations to come.
This is important—it’s partly why I wrote this book. But there is a
second problem. This is the risk of us slipping into complacency,
and not reveling in the awe and wonder of the world we’re
building. Because, make no mistake, our scientists, engineers, and
technologists are catching up with the wild imaginations of science
fiction movie writers and directors awfully fast. If you open your
eyes and really look at what we are achieving, it’s truly mindblowing!
Contact—and every other movie in this book—is a reminder that
science and technology are more than a little dangerous if not
approached carefully, and that a “meh” response probably isn’t
the best strategy for handling them. But it’s also a reminder of the
awesomeness of science and technology, and what we can achieve
if we get things right. And it’s an exhortation to never let go of our
dreams, and to embrace the wonder that comes from exploring the
universe we find ourselves in.
[^177]: I may be slipping into hyperbole here, but over the years talking with colleagues, this is the movie that often comes out as most closely reflecting how they feel about science, and how it inspires them.
[^178]: A lot has been written about how our cognitive biases and mental shortcuts affect what we believe and how we behave, including how we respond to information that jars with what we believe to be true. Two good starting points for beginning to explore this area are Daniel Kahneman’s 2013 book, “Thinking Fast and Slow” (published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux), and the 2017 US National Academy of Sciences report, “Communicating Science Effectively” (published by the National Academies Press), https://www.nap.edu/catalog/23674/communicating-science-effectively-a-researchagenda.