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  1. You mean the Harvard astronomer who has been suggesting for decades that *all kinds of things* are relics from a distant civilization? I can’t believe NASA isn’t taking him seriously…

  2. Opposite-Chemistry-0 on

    Hmm no words about CO2 and nickel. Oh well. It most certainly is a comet. But oh my oh, press loves to pick up anything Avi Loeb writes. 

  3. > Loeb, meanwhile, acknowledged in his blogpost that “the simplest hypothesis is that 3I/ATLAS is a comet”, and that he was raising alternative possibilities as an exercise in challenging preconceived ideas.
    >
    > “Let us instead maintain our childhood curiosity and seek evidence rather than pretend to be the adults in the room that know the answers in advance,” he wrote.
    >
    > “The hypothesis is an interesting exercise in its own right, and is fun to pursue, irrespective of its likely validity.”

    i mean its possible. even if improbable, being closed minded is bad for science. many instances throughout history including recently of dogmatic belief in “facts” that there couldn’t possibly be any other answer leading to people with new discoveries effectively being canceled and shunned from the profession.

  4. ReturnOfDaSnack420 on

    At some point “just asking questions” turns you into a grifting fraud and Avi Loeb is there

  5. I saw this, thought ‘I bet it’s Avi Loeb’, opened it and hey presto, I was right that the same guy always saying it’s aliens is once again saying it’s aliens. I wish they’d stop calling him ‘Harvard astronomer’ and start calling him ‘notorious bullshitter’.

  6. Can I say with absolute 100% certainty iis not an alien artifact? No but the chances it is are astronomically tiny and I’d need to see some sort of very compelling evidence it’s not just a rock.

  7. Questionsaboutsanity on

    not very scientific to dismiss a theory (or mere hypothesis) because it doesn’t fit into the standard narrative without providing evidence actually falsifying the theory. not that i buy his story but: could it possibly be of not natural / technological origin? yes. could it be a comet or new category of interstellar object? yes. so we don’t know at this point and to outright dismiss it is equally absurd.

  8. I like this sub. Most people respond with a healthy dose of skepticism. In other subs the top 20 posts would either make fun of Loeb or talk about nickels. It’s a mix of both here which is good.

  9. I dont understand why Harvard keeps putting up with this nonsense. If tenure is this bulletproof it needs to be abolished. Loeb knows the things he is saying is mostly nonsense, a PhD willingly promoting such nonsense for shits and giggles. By his own words.

  10. Well it COULD be, but there is zero evidence of that. You could just as easily postulate that the object is made out of cheese. we really need to stop calling wild a** guesses ‘theories’.

  11. It could be a friggin Denny’s but until we get a camera that can resolve it in enough detail to tell we can just pretend that it could be *anything*.

  12. Y’all have never read Avi’s posts and it shows. Dude’s making hypotheses and showing what data supports or opposes it.

    Meanwhile commentators here seem to think science is actually just believing what other scientists say as long as it agrees with their prior assumptions. 

  13. Boredum_Allergy on

    Could we stop giving Avi Loeb attention? It’s pretty clear he’s angling to be popular in the aliens are here crowd with all the wild shit he says.

  14. Ah, Avi. Where most people see a rock, he sees an alien starship. Knew his name was gonna be in this article. He was saying the same thing about Omuamua.