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Astrobiologists are rational but not Bayesian

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 June 2021

William Bains Open the ORCID record for William Bains [Opens in a new window]  and
Janusz Jurand Petkowski Open the ORCID record for Janusz Jurand Petkowski [Opens in a new window]
William Bains*
Affiliation:
Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA02139, USA School of Physics & Astronomy, Cardiff University, 4 The Parade, CardiffCF24 3AA, UK
Janusz Jurand Petkowski
Affiliation:
Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA02139, USA
*
Author for correspondence: William Bains, E-mail: bains@mit.edu
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Abstract

The search for biosignatures is likely to generate controversial results, with no single biosignature being clear proof of the presence of life. Bayesian statistical frameworks have been suggested as a tool for testing the effect that a new observation has on our belief in the presence of life on another planet. We test this approach here using the tentative discovery of phosphine on Venus as an example of a possible detection of a biosignature on an otherwise well-characterized planet. We report on a survey of astrobiologists' views on the likelihood of life on Enceladus, Europa, Mars, Titan and Venus before the announcement of the detection of phosphine in Venus' atmosphere (the Bayesian Prior Probability) and after the announcement (the Posterior Probability). Survey results show that respondents have a general view on the likelihood of life on any world, independent of the relative ranking of specific bodies, and that there is a distinct ‘fans of icy moons’ sub-community. The announcement of the potential presence of phosphine on Venus resulted in the community showing a small but significant increase in its confidence that there was life on Venus; nevertheless the community still considers Venus to be the least likely abode of life among the five targets considered, last after Titan. We derive a Bayesian formulation that explicitly includes both the uncertainty in the interpretation of the signal as well as uncertainty in whether phosphine on Venus could have been produced by life. We show that although the community has shown rational restraint about a highly unexpected and still tentative detection, their changing expectations do not fit a Bayesian model.

Keywords

Bayesian statisticsbiosignaturecommunitysurvey
Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Astrobiology , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , August 2021 , pp. 312 - 318
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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