From Derek Thompson at The Atlantic:
In the seventh episode of Crazy/Genius, a new podcast from The Atlantic on tech, science, and culture, we put the question to several experts, including Ellen Stofan, the former chief scientist of nasa and current director of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum; Adam Frank, a writer and astrophysicist at the University of Rochester; Anders Sandberg, a scientist and futurist at the University of Oxford; and Tim Urban, the science essayist at Wait But Why.More.
Answers fell into three broad, predictable categories: There re no aliens. There are extraterrestrial life forms but they re not smart. And, the all-time favorite, they are out there but hiding.
One wonders why there is a renewed interest in aliens all of a sudden. Their absence is hurting pop science media mor than it is hurting anyone else.
See also: At Forbes: About extraterrestrial life, “fancy probabilistic analysis” just isn’t science All true. But that said, we have found complex organic molecules on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, which should provide a basis for genuine research. From a minimalist perspective, what if we encounter a number of instances where the setting seems to be right but life or intelligent life is markedly absent? In certain situations, persistently not finding something can be a source of information. (Ethan Siegel)
These vids offer some charactristic thoughts thoughts too, while the existentialists Wait for Godot, and Wait, and Wait…: