What would happen if people on Earth discovered that we are not alone in the universe -- even if that discovery only meant the existence of extraterrestrial microbes? Michael Varnum, a psychologist at Arizona State University, wanted to find out if there would be mass hysteria or welcoming acceptance. His researchers recruited participants on Amazon's Mechanical Turk crowd-sourcing website to answer two questions: How would they personally feel if scientists announced the discovery of alien microbial life? And how do they think the public at large would respond? The researchers found that, in general, people reacted positively, although they were less sure that their neighbors would feel the same optimism about alien life forms.
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- “It’s more likely that we're going to find microbes or viruses rather than, say, intelligent civilizations living on Venus,” Varnum said.
- Varnum also analyzed the word choice used in news articles relating to potential extraterrestrial discoveries, and noted that the language tended to skew more positive than negative.
- In a separate study conducted by the consulting firm Glocalities, 26,492 people from 24 countries shared their beliefs about life on other planets. The majority of the respondents (61 percent) said that they believe there is life on faraway planets, despite the lack of evidence..