Sarah Scoles: They Are Already Here
It was great to have Sarah Scoles on the INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE podcast and discuss her new book “They Are Already Here: UFO Culture and Why We See Saucers.” We talked about her writing process and how the spark of an idea led to her latest dive into a space-related topic. Now that she’s written about SETI and UFOs, I wonder if she’ll get type cast, what’s next — the Loch Ness monster? Sarah’s currently researching millennial doomsday cults, so that should be interesting. I’m sure her ability to balance journalism with a personal touch will continue to come in handy.
Our conversation quickly turned into an analysis of how inherent biases shape our views of the world. Everyone is affected, whether they’re aware of it or not (and most of us aren’t).
Check out the worksheet for a link to some quick online tests to assess your biases:here.
Confirmation bias happens to everyone, even the most experienced scientists. In the UFO culture that Sarah writes about, those who “want to believe” will find a way to, no matter what evidence stacks up. But there are many who assert just
as strongly that we are alone in the universe. For now, it remains unfalsifiable so a strong stance on either side seems misguided to me. As the saying goes, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
We also discussed how authority bias runs rampant, people giving either too much or too little credit to authority figures based on their personal feelings. This applies to government officials, but can also be directed at scientists. That the government would cover up evidence of alien life is one thing, but believing that astronomers wouldn’t publish such a career-defining discovery is unfathomable! It would lead to scientific immortality.
But, as Sarah points out, the link between governmental and scientific pursuits are often blurred and misunderstood. “There’s also the element that a lot of scientific facilities have started their lives as military facilities or with some kind of military funding in their past and now with the internet it’s not hard for people to find that out and springboard that into the present and say they’re still doing secret government work,” she says.
It’s fortuitous that we’re releasing this episode of INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE the same week that the Pentagon finally declassified and released the already
much-discussed videos of what they call UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena). I’ll have to get in touch with Michael Shermer, founder of Skeptic magazine and a recent guest on INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE; he’s helped debunk UFO reports in the past.
Sarah’s book will be enjoyed by skeptics and believers alike and is also well-timed to correspond to the 35th anniversary of the SETI Institute. The Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination recently hosted a lecture and discussion with James Benford and Paul Davies (moderated by yours truly) about the search for extraterrestrial life.
Sarah shared some of her personal background growing up in the Mormon church and how that affects how she interacts with people of faith. Whether that is directed to religion or belief in aliens, her journalism credentials have taught her to approach that faith in a similar way. My interest in the intersection between faith and science remains interminable.
Some resources and links:
Amazon links to her books:
Read an excerpt from “They’re Already Here” reprinted by WIRED.
Listen to Scoles talk about representation in science writing on the podcast 51%.
For more about Scoles’ experience researching and writing her previous book, “Making Contact,” check out this interview.
Mick West, a popular skeptic, analyzed the Nimitz UFO / UAP video last year.
Find Sarah Scoles on the web www.sarahscoles.com & Twitter @ScolesSarah
Find Brian Keating on Twitter @DrBrianKeating
Please subscribe, rate, and review the INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE Podcast on iTunes for a chance to win a copy of Scoles’ latest book: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/i…
Sarah Scoles is a freelance science writer, a contributing author at WIRED, and a contributing editor at Popular Science. See her impressive list of bylines here.
She previously worked as an associate editor at Astronomy magazine and an educational tour guide at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia.
A worksheet for this episode can be found here.
A worksheet for this episode can be found here.
