Space Aliens Are Neo-Malthusians!
Yahoo links, somewhat misleadingly, a strange paper in which the authors argue that Malthusianism governs the destiny of life in the universe. NASA scientists have explained in a new paper why they believe it’s likely we haven’t ever encountered intelligent extraterrestrial life — and it’s heartbreaking. Curious, I went to the paper itself . The lead author, Jonathan H Jiang , is a "principal scientist" (whatever that means) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory with degrees including a PhD in fields related to astrophysics. This is a field that, like linguistics, seems to be dominated by wild speculation, so that's red flag number one. Number two is that, although he's the lead author, his co-authors include Philip E. Rosen , who is listed as an "independent researcher" in Vancouver, WA but is elsewhere listed as "retired"; Kelly Lu , a member of the class of 2024 at Santa Margarita Catholic High School; Kristen A. Fahy , a member of the Tropos...