86.6% of the surveyed astrobiologists responded either “agree” or “strongly agree” that it’s likely that extraterrestrial life (of at least a basic kind) exists somewhere in the universe. Less than 2% disagreed, with 12% staying neutral.[Do aliens exist? We studied what scientists really think](https://theconversation.com/do-aliens-exist-we-studied-what-scientists-really-think-241505)
While I do believe that astrobiologists are most expert on the topic I also believe they might be the most biased.
‘Astrobiologists’ – might be a biased sample ^^
What? 1.4% of astrobiologists don’t believe in aliens? S-should someone tell them?
95% of Flat-Earthers believe the earth is flat. The other 5% are truely lost souls
7.3 egotists (or nihilists) responded
This chart is literally the least interesting thing the study found.
I don’t think this would surprise anyone, it’s likely there is life outside of the earth. What I think most don’t believe is that earth has been visited by sentient aliens.
Astrobiologists are basically just edgy biological oceanographers. Of course they believe in the utility of their field.
Not saying they aren’t right but ask any scientist about the importance of their own research and you’ll get a biased response
How can you be an astrobiologist and not believe in extra terrestrial life ? You’re basically admitting that your field doesn’t exist. It would be like a cardiologist not believing that hearts exist
Has/ will life ( Anything that could reproduce, like bacteria ) ever existed? Most likely yes.
Has/ will there be other conscious beings, that can communicate, and also reached the space age? Maybe.
Will their existence overlap ours? No.
Haha cool, I actually participated in this survey!
I did astrobiology in grad school and mostly work in artificial life. For me at least, my understanding of what should be considered life (or “lyfe” and Wong and Bartlett are calling it) has shifted substantially.
We are used to thinking of life as this binary phenomena that it’s either life or not life. However, there’s a lot of reason to think there’s a lot of cases in between (think viruses, prions, technology, etc). Because of this, what we might consider life (or, “aliens”) is very very different than public perception. But all of that is still a huge topic of discussion and it seems we are still pretty far off from consensus.
So, when I said “yeah I think aliens probably exist” I wasn’t thinking about the silly UFO cartoon grey guys, super-intelligent creatures from Three Body Problem, or xenomorphs from Alien. Nah, I was thinking of some boring collection of semi-movable pieces of matter that encodes information dynamically or sumthn.
This isn’t beautiful in the slightest. Purple on orange?
This isn’t beautiful in the slightest. Purple on orange?
I mean theory suggest that life on earth literally began by a space amoebe crashing. Which technically classified as “life”, soooo hard to disagree, really.
Does this mean some astrobiologists are aliens?
87% agree with what exactly?
This data is not beautiful.
I’m a planetary scientist. I’m curious to know who they included as “astrobiologists” in their sample. Astrobiology continues to be a relatively nebulous umbrella concept and a lot of people who study subjects related to astrobiology are actually something else.
Everyone’s looking at this chart title and pointing out that astrobiologists believe in aliens. I’m sat here thinking doesn’t this mean that at least 86.6% are aliens… 🧐
Almost 90% of them are religious? That is a lot.
I think this is by far the most beautifully formatted graphic I have ever seen. The 3 bars were very necessary. /s
It’s beyond naive to believe we are the only “intelligent ” civilization in existence.
What does an astrobiologist do with their life if they dont think there is any life in space?
Just to be clear: “extraterrestrial life” is very different from “intellegent life”.
They agree that there are living cells out there, not ufos that do random probing.
![[OC]](https://www.europesays.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/0b6d923ifrie1-1191x1024.jpeg){kind=spacer}
28 comments
86.6% of the surveyed astrobiologists responded either “agree” or “strongly agree” that it’s likely that extraterrestrial life (of at least a basic kind) exists somewhere in the universe. Less than 2% disagreed, with 12% staying neutral.[Do aliens exist? We studied what scientists really think](https://theconversation.com/do-aliens-exist-we-studied-what-scientists-really-think-241505)
To clarify, I created this graph based on the study mentioned in the attached article. I am not the researcher who conducted the study. [Do aliens exist? We studied what scientists really think](https://theconversation.com/do-aliens-exist-we-studied-what-scientists-really-think-241505)
While I do believe that astrobiologists are most expert on the topic I also believe they might be the most biased.
‘Astrobiologists’ – might be a biased sample ^^
What? 1.4% of astrobiologists don’t believe in aliens? S-should someone tell them?
95% of Flat-Earthers believe the earth is flat. The other 5% are truely lost souls
7.3 egotists (or nihilists) responded
This chart is literally the least interesting thing the study found.
I don’t think this would surprise anyone, it’s likely there is life outside of the earth. What I think most don’t believe is that earth has been visited by sentient aliens.
Astrobiologists are basically just edgy biological oceanographers. Of course they believe in the utility of their field.
Not saying they aren’t right but ask any scientist about the importance of their own research and you’ll get a biased response
How can you be an astrobiologist and not believe in extra terrestrial life ? You’re basically admitting that your field doesn’t exist. It would be like a cardiologist not believing that hearts exist
Has/ will life ( Anything that could reproduce, like bacteria ) ever existed? Most likely yes.
Has/ will there be other conscious beings, that can communicate, and also reached the space age? Maybe.
Will their existence overlap ours? No.
Haha cool, I actually participated in this survey!
I did astrobiology in grad school and mostly work in artificial life. For me at least, my understanding of what should be considered life (or “lyfe” and Wong and Bartlett are calling it) has shifted substantially.
We are used to thinking of life as this binary phenomena that it’s either life or not life. However, there’s a lot of reason to think there’s a lot of cases in between (think viruses, prions, technology, etc). Because of this, what we might consider life (or, “aliens”) is very very different than public perception. But all of that is still a huge topic of discussion and it seems we are still pretty far off from consensus.
So, when I said “yeah I think aliens probably exist” I wasn’t thinking about the silly UFO cartoon grey guys, super-intelligent creatures from Three Body Problem, or xenomorphs from Alien. Nah, I was thinking of some boring collection of semi-movable pieces of matter that encodes information dynamically or sumthn.
This isn’t beautiful in the slightest. Purple on orange?
This isn’t beautiful in the slightest. Purple on orange?
I mean theory suggest that life on earth literally began by a space amoebe crashing. Which technically classified as “life”, soooo hard to disagree, really.
Does this mean some astrobiologists are aliens?
87% agree with what exactly?
This data is not beautiful.
I’m a planetary scientist. I’m curious to know who they included as “astrobiologists” in their sample. Astrobiology continues to be a relatively nebulous umbrella concept and a lot of people who study subjects related to astrobiology are actually something else.
Everyone’s looking at this chart title and pointing out that astrobiologists believe in aliens. I’m sat here thinking doesn’t this mean that at least 86.6% are aliens… 🧐
Almost 90% of them are religious? That is a lot.
I think this is by far the most beautifully formatted graphic I have ever seen. The 3 bars were very necessary. /s
It’s beyond naive to believe we are the only “intelligent ” civilization in existence.
What does an astrobiologist do with their life if they dont think there is any life in space?
Just to be clear: “extraterrestrial life” is very different from “intellegent life”.
They agree that there are living cells out there, not ufos that do random probing.
I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Ah yes only unbiased data for my predictions
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