SETI and astrobiology: The Rio Scale and the London Scale
Abstract
The public reaction to a discovery, the character of the corresponding risk communication, as well as the possible impact on science and society all depend on the character of the phenomenon discovered, on the method of discovery, on the distance to the phenomenon and, last but not least, on the reliability of the announcement itself. The Rio Scale - proposed together with Jill Tarter just a decade ago at an IAA symposium in Rio de Janeiro - attempts to quantify the relative importance of such a “low probability, high consequence event”, namely the announcement of an ETI discovery. After the publication of the book “The Eerie Silence” by Paul Davies it is necessary to control how the recently suggested possible “technosignatures” or “technomarkers” mentioned in this book could be evaluated by the Rio Scale. The new London Scale, proposed at the Royal Society meeting in January 2010, in London, is a similar attempt to quantify the impact of an announcement regarding the discovery of ET life on an analogous ordinal scale between zero and ten. Here again the new concept of a “shadow biosphere” raised in this book deserves a special attention since a “weird form of life” found on Earth would not necessarily have an extraterrestrial origin, nevertheless it might be an important discovery in itself. Several arguments are presented that methods, aims and targets of “search for ET life” and “search for ET intelligence” are recently converging. The new problem is raised whether a unification of these two scales is necessary as a consequence of the convergence of the two subjects. Finally, it is suggested that experts in social sciences should take the structure of the respective scales into consideration when investigating case by case the possible effects on the society of such discoveries.
- Publication:
-
Acta Astronautica
- Pub Date:
- November 2011
- DOI:
- 10.1016/j.actaastro.2011.05.036
- Bibcode:
- 2011AcAau..69..899A