Academic Journal
The catastrophic consequences of agnosticism for life searches and a possible workaround.
| Τίτλος: | The catastrophic consequences of agnosticism for life searches and a possible workaround. |
|---|---|
| Συγγραφείς: | Kipping, David1 (AUTHOR) |
| Πηγή: | Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 8/10/2026, Vol. 550 Issue 3, p1-16. 16p. |
| Θεματικοί όροι: | *Agnosticism, *False positive error, *Biosignatures (Origin of life), *Bayes' theorem, *Experimental design |
| Περίληψη: | Planned and ongoing searches for life, both biological and technological, confront an epistemic barrier concerning false positives – namely, that we don't know what we don't know. The most defensible and agnostic approach is to adopt diffuse (uninformative) priors, not only for the prevalence of life, but also for the prevalence of confounders. We evaluate the resulting Bayes factors between the null and life hypotheses for an idealized experiment with N pos positive labels (biosignature detections) among N tot targets with various priors. Using diffuse priors, the consequences are catastrophic for life detection, requiring at least ∼ 10 4 (for some priors ∼ 10 13 ) surveyed targets to ever obtain 'strong evidence' for life. Accordingly, an HWO-scale survey with N tot ∼ 25 would have no prospect of achieving this goal. A previously suggested workaround is to forgo the agnostic confounder prior by asserting some upper limit on it, for example, but we find that the results can be highly sensitive to this choice – as well as difficult to justify. Instead, we suggest a novel solution that retains agnosticism: by dividing the sample into two groups for which the prevalence of life differs, but the confounder rate is global. We show that a N tot = 24 survey could expect 24 per cent of possible outcomes to produce strong life detections with this strategy, rising to ≥ 50 % for N tot ≥ 76 . However, AB-testing introduces its own unique challenges to survey design, requiring two groups with differing life prevalence rates (ideally greatly so) but a global confounder rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
| Βάση Δεδομένων: | Academic Search Index |
| FullText | Text: Availability: 0 CustomLinks: – Url: https://resolver.ebsco.com/c/fiv2js/result?sid=EBSCO:asx&genre=article&issn=00358711&ISBN=&volume=550&issue=3&date=20260810&spage=1&pages=1-16&title=Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society&atitle=The%20catastrophic%20consequences%20of%20agnosticism%20for%20life%20searches%20and%20a%20possible%20workaround.&aulast=Kipping%2C%20David&id=DOI:10.1093/mnras/stag1316 Name: Full Text Finder (for New FTF UI) (ns324271) Category: fullText Text: Full Text Finder MouseOverText: Full Text Finder |
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| Header | DbId: asx DbLabel: Academic Search Index An: 196249274 RelevancyScore: 1452 AccessLevel: 6 PubType: Academic Journal PubTypeId: academicJournal PreciseRelevancyScore: 1452.4248046875 |
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| Items | – Name: Title Label: Title Group: Ti Data: The catastrophic consequences of agnosticism for life searches and a possible workaround. – Name: Author Label: Authors Group: Au Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Kipping%2C+David%22">Kipping, David</searchLink><relatesTo>1</relatesTo> (AUTHOR) – Name: TitleSource Label: Source Group: Src Data: <searchLink fieldCode="JN" term="%22Monthly+Notices+of+the+Royal+Astronomical+Society%22">Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society</searchLink>. 8/10/2026, Vol. 550 Issue 3, p1-16. 16p. – Name: Subject Label: Subject Terms Group: Su Data: *<searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Agnosticism%22">Agnosticism</searchLink><br />*<searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22False+positive+error%22">False positive error</searchLink><br />*<searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Biosignatures+%28Origin+of+life%29%22">Biosignatures (Origin of life)</searchLink><br />*<searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Bayes'+theorem%22">Bayes' theorem</searchLink><br />*<searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Experimental+design%22">Experimental design</searchLink> – Name: Abstract Label: Abstract Group: Ab Data: Planned and ongoing searches for life, both biological and technological, confront an epistemic barrier concerning false positives – namely, that we don't know what we don't know. The most defensible and agnostic approach is to adopt diffuse (uninformative) priors, not only for the prevalence of life, but also for the prevalence of confounders. We evaluate the resulting Bayes factors between the null and life hypotheses for an idealized experiment with N pos positive labels (biosignature detections) among N tot targets with various priors. Using diffuse priors, the consequences are catastrophic for life detection, requiring at least ∼ 10 4 (for some priors ∼ 10 13 ) surveyed targets to ever obtain 'strong evidence' for life. Accordingly, an HWO-scale survey with N tot ∼ 25 would have no prospect of achieving this goal. A previously suggested workaround is to forgo the agnostic confounder prior by asserting some upper limit on it, for example, but we find that the results can be highly sensitive to this choice – as well as difficult to justify. Instead, we suggest a novel solution that retains agnosticism: by dividing the sample into two groups for which the prevalence of life differs, but the confounder rate is global. We show that a N tot = 24 survey could expect 24 per cent of possible outcomes to produce strong life detections with this strategy, rising to ≥ 50 % for N tot ≥ 76 . However, AB-testing introduces its own unique challenges to survey design, requiring two groups with differing life prevalence rates (ideally greatly so) but a global confounder rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
| PLink | https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=asx&AN=196249274 |
| RecordInfo | BibRecord: BibEntity: Identifiers: – Type: doi Value: 10.1093/mnras/stag1316 Languages: – Code: eng Text: English PhysicalDescription: Pagination: PageCount: 16 StartPage: 1 Subjects: – SubjectFull: Agnosticism Type: general – SubjectFull: False positive error Type: general – SubjectFull: Biosignatures (Origin of life) Type: general – SubjectFull: Bayes' theorem Type: general – SubjectFull: Experimental design Type: general Titles: – TitleFull: The catastrophic consequences of agnosticism for life searches and a possible workaround. Type: main BibRelationships: HasContributorRelationships: – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Kipping, David IsPartOfRelationships: – BibEntity: Dates: – D: 10 M: 08 Text: 8/10/2026 Type: published Y: 2026 Identifiers: – Type: issn-print Value: 00358711 Numbering: – Type: volume Value: 550 – Type: issue Value: 3 Titles: – TitleFull: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Type: main |
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