Astrophysicist and author Mario Livio writes in the journal Nature and talks to Scientific American about the recently rediscovered essay by Winston Churchill that analyzed with impressive scientific accuracy the conditions under which extraterrestrial life might exist.
Steve Mirsky: Welcome to Scientific American’s Science Talk posted on February 15, 2017. I’m Steve Mirsky. In 1939 with the war in Europe looming Winston Churchill published a newspaper essay on of all things the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Astrophysicist Mario Livio saw the essay last year while visiting the U.S. National Churchill Museum in Fulton, Missouri. That’s the site of the Churchill museum because he made his famous Iron Curtain speech at Westminster College there in 1946.
[Clip from speech plays]
On supporting science journalism
If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
Livio was so taken by Churchill’s analysis that he wrote a piece about it for the February 16th edition of the journal Nature. Mario Livio is an astrophysicist and author. His upcoming book is called Why? What Makes Us Curious. That will come out in July. I spoke to Livio earlier today by phone. What’s fascinating to me is Churchill is thought of as a politician. A lot of people forget that he was a journalist, a wonderful writer. I mean he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. And that he had a great and deep interest in science.
Mario Livio: Right. And what was amazing to me in addition after reading this particular essay was how his logic, his train of thought is just like that of a scientist. I mean he picks this subject are we alone in the universe meaning is there life out there. And then he progresses point by point. He starts by defining life, then saying, okay, what’s necessary for life. He identifies liquid water, which is the same thing that we do today. We say follow the water.
He then says okay. What does it take to have liquid water? He basically identifies what we call today habitable zone—just right region—which is not too cold, not too hot. He then looks at the solar system and looks where are possible places. He then discussed extra solar planets. So if I were to write today about this topic in this way, this would be exactly the way I would write it. And he just does this even though he’s not a scientist.
Mirsky: You’re an astrophysicist and that’s the way you would do it and he basically takes the same approach. There’s a fascinating part of your essay talking about his essay where he’s considering the formation of planets at the, with what was known at the time of writing. But he’s openminded enough to realize that that current speculation may be incorrect and that would change the outcome.
Livio: Right. This was astounding to me. Okay. He had the wrong model. He used the model that James Jeans wrote in 1917 which was about stars passing nearer the sun let’s say and tearing off some material from it and planets forming from that material that was torn off. That model we know today is the wrong model for planet formation.
He then looks at what is the probability for that happening a lot and he concludes that it wouldn’t happen a lot which is true from which one might conclude that life is very rare. I mean planets and life are very rare. But then he says but maybe this model is wrong and so on. This was fantastic for me that even though he’s not a scientist he considers the possibility that the theoretical model he was looking at could be wrong.
Mirsky: Yeah. Very, very impressive thinking for basically an intelligent science interested layperson. You mentioned H. G. Wells in your essay because Churchill wrote his piece shortly after the famous War of the Worlds Orson Welles broadcast. H. G. Wells, Orson Welles—no relation. From reading Graham Farmelo’s book about Churchill and the effort by scientists in England to also develop an atomic bomb at the beginning of World War II it’s clear that he and H. G. Wells actually had at least a passing friendship and corresponded.
Livio: Yeah. And he clearly read H. G. Wells. So but you see unlike many people read H. G. Wells and many people heard Orson Welles’s radio program. But unlike the general public, which was mostly fed by this science fiction literature or radio programming, Churchill took this to the next level to write an article that was more like a scientific article than just popular science.
Mirsky: I don’t know if you had this reaction but it makes me unfortunately compare our current leadership and what they would be capable of doing even within their areas of expertise, let alone outside their areas of expertise.
Livio: Yeah. Well, I’m not a politician and I don’t want to comment too much on politics but the thing is you do get a certain level of nostalgia to a time when you have somebody who is arguably the greatest statesman of the 20th century. Being so profoundly interested in science that he is even willing to write articles about this and of course he has a science advisor and all that. So the lesson here I think is that when you want to tackle problems that require science input you need good science advisors.
Mirsky: And you also have to make the basic assumption that science talks about reality.
Livio: Of course—I mean that science provides facts and that those facts need to be considered. And the thing is you see that irrespective of which politicians you’re talking about, there is no question that humanity today is facing many challenges that require scientific input. I mean whether it’s climate change, whether it’s food resources, whether it’s fighting diseases. Not to speak of course of the basic curiosity that drives all basic research. Like we still have not answered the question are we alone in the universe for example or how does human consciousness work and so on. So for all of those, you certainly need scientific input and really only the right scientists can provide that input for the right decisions to be made.
Mirsky: You also talk toward the end of the essay about how even though he was a great supporter of science he also knew that it needed to be tempered by humanistic values.
Livio: Oh yeah. Absolutely. This was a big thing with him especially later in life because he lived through seeing what the atomic bombs have done. And he realized that you cannot just let science run free without the context of everything that happens within a human society and culture. So he basically didn’t want scientists to be operating in a moral vacuum. And so, he wanted them to be informed by human values and humanistic subjects to put things in the right context.
Mirsky: Can you talk about just how you felt when you saw this essay for the first time?
Livio: Yes. I was truly amazed. I mean I cannot even describe to you. I mean just seeing the title. When the director of Churchill museum told me “There is an essay here I want you to take a look at” and he gave me a copy of this and I saw that Winston Churchill writes about are we alone in the universe. It was just to me astonishing. And then I said okay, let me read it and see if I can make any comments. And once I read it and was extremely impressed with it, I came up with this idea that I would write this science article where I would compare today’s thinking to his points at that time.
Mirsky: So impressive. Certainly, a man of his time but somebody who really could see beyond his time as well.
Livio: Right. And in topics that are beyond what you might have thought he would be interested in. Because remember. I mean even his interest in science—it could have been that he would only be interested in those scientific subjects, which made a contribution to the war effort for example. But no, he was interested in something that clearly has no immediate applications whatsoever. It’s just pure scientific curiosity. And yet he’s interested enough to even write about this, let alone read about it.
Mirsky: Now one suspects that he had a mind to crib from the descriptions of Newton that was never at rest.
Livio: Right. Right.
Mirsky: Yeah. So anything that would be put before him he would probably start to analyze in a very rigorous manner just because that’s the way he was.
Livio: Correct.
Mirsky: Yeah. Well, fascinating to talk to you about this. And again, this is in the issue of Nature, the February 16th issue of Nature that actually is published today, the 15th. Thank you very much for your time.
Livio: My pleasure.
Mirsky: Mario Livio’s piece about Churchill’s essay is available on the Scientific American website and the Nature website. I don’t currently have good information about the availability of the Churchill essay itself. I’ll provide updates in future episodes.
That’s it for this episode. Get your science news at our website www.scientificamerican.com where you can also check out Annie Sneed’s article about the efforts to use artificial intelligence to predict earthquakes. And follow us on Twitter where you’ll get a tweet whenever a new item hits the website. Our Twitter name is @SciAm. For Scientific American Science Talk I am Steve Mirsky. Thanks for clicking on us.
[End of Audio]
