Hawking’s Warning and Cognitive Bias
The 2024 article “Stephen Hawking’s Warning on Contacting Aliens: A Physics Perspective on the Intelligence Trap” discusses the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) and emphasizes its scientific intrigue alongside its profound ethical and safety implications. Drawing on Stephen Hawking’s cautionary advice, the authors highlight the potential dangers of actively signaling to alien civilizations—suggesting that our limited understanding of their intentions and possible technological superiority could pose existential risks. The paper also introduces the “Intelligence Trap,” a psychological concept suggesting that highly intelligent individuals can fall prey to biases—raising the possibility that Hawking’s own caution may reflect such cognitive pitfalls. Balancing optimism and concern, the article argues for a prudent approach to SETI, urging scientists and policymakers to carefully weigh potential benefits against the unknown perils of contacting extraterrestrial life.
Interestingly, I find that the aliens aren’t the real story, the cognitive bias among our top scientists, astronomers and cosmologists is the real message Hawking is trying to convey. More revealing now than ever, given the revelation of 3I/Atlas, the compelling nature of this phenomenon and watching the reaction of the scientific community – including NASA. Despite the fact that this is only the third interstellar object confirmed to pass through our Solar System, its hyperbolic trajectory, and an orbital eccentricity of 6.2, scientists seem to be dismissive that this could be anything other than a rock… Harvard scientist Avi Loeb contends that this stellar phenomenon is so compelling that it should be studied with great scrutiny, in fact, he recommends re-tasking the Juno space probe to intercept Atlas later this Fall when it passes Jupiter. It seems like he is fighting an uphill battle as he has been met with great scrutiny from his colleagues and seems to be the only voice of reason. In the last couple of weeks, it has been further revealed to the public that 3I/Atlas also has an unusual composition. The James Web Space Telescope (JWST) conducted spectroscopic observations which revealed a very unusual chemistry that is uncharacteristic of anything that we have previously encountered. As 3I Atlas draws closer to our inner Solar System more and more data will help scientists determine what this is, but will we (the public at large) see the real data? I feel that their cognitive bias is so severe, that they may try to obscure the real data, they cannot let anything upset the balance of their comfortable practitioning of ontological reductionism.
