Author: Maria Temming / Source: Science News for Students
AUSTIN, Texas — Earthlings may offer a warm welcome to microbes from space.
That was the conclusion of scientists at a news conference on February 16.
They had asked Americans how they would react to a finding of extraterrestrial life. And generally, they found, people had said they would respond positively. The researchers shared their findings, here, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.The researchers had not suggested an alien humanoid might turn up. They asked people instead about how they would feel about microbes from space.
The responses suggest that if microbes are found on Mars, Saturn’s moon Enceladus or elsewhere, “we’ll take the news rather well,” said Michael Varnum. He is a social psychologist on the project. He works at Arizona State University in Tempe. What’s more, he added, the tone of news reports on potential evidence for intelligent aliens suggests people would welcome that news, too.
Varnum was part of a team that surveyed some 500 online volunteers, all in the United States. Each was asked to describe how they would react to learning scientists had just turned up germ-size E.
T.’s. Varnum’s team analyzed each response using a computer program. It looked for words indicating positive feelings (such as “nice”) and negative ones (such as “worried”). The program also scanned for reward- and risk-focused words, such as “benefit” or “danger.”People generally used more positive and reward-oriented words than negative and risk-oriented ones…
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