With the recent discovery of phosphine gas on Venus, we debate whether Dan Dare has now been vindicated.

This podcast explores what we can infer from the small amounts of data we receive from space, and whether we have sufficient data to develop meaningful models of what is happening on other planets. We also discuss the way theories and counter-theories develop and - of course - alien life itself and the probability of its existence in different forms.

A few things we mentioned in this podcast:

- ‘Phosphine Gas in the Cloud Decks of Venus’ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-1174-4

- Bill Clinton’s announcement about the Allan Hills meteorite: https://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/snc/clinton.html

- Why Nick Bostrom hopes we don’t find extraterrestrial life: https://www.nickbostrom.com/extraterrestrial.pdf

- The Drake Equation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation#:~:text=The%20Drake%20equation%20is%20a,in%20the%20Milky%20Way%20galaxy

- The search for megastructures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere#Search_for_megastructures

- Life on Venus is bad news in terms of the Great Filter https://www.forbes.com/sites/briankoberlein/2020/09/15/if-there-really-is-life-on-venus-we-could-be-doomed/

Find more Cognitive Engineering episodes here https://link.chtbl.com/SQeIgc44

Image: Carl Jones via Flickr