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Communicating astrobiology in words not numbers and with facts not fiction

Nature Astronomy volume 7, page 1009 (2023)Cite this article

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Recently, NASA scientists and administrators have proposed a numerical scale for quantifying the Confidence of Life Detection — the CoLD scale1. Although the stated goal is to minimize damaging public trust with premature or overly confident claims of detecting life beyond Earth, the CoLD scale is an inapt and easily abused tool that will do little to address the misleading terminology and sensational narratives that plague both public and scientific communications from the astrobiology community.

The inaugural issue of Nature Astronomy warned of harm to public trust if the science community continued to use imprecise and misleading wording such as ‘super Earth’ or ‘Earth 2.0’2,3,4. The trend has, however, continued and the public now also hears about ‘super-habitable planets’ and ‘Goldilocks stars’. The catchy wording grabs attention by design. At the same time, it sends misinformation in ways that numbers cannot correct5.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Adrian Lenardic & Johnny Seales

  2. Hampton University, Hampton, VA, USA

    William B. Moore

  3. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    A. Mark Jellinek

Authors
  1. Adrian Lenardic
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  2. Johnny Seales
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  3. William B. Moore
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  4. A. Mark Jellinek
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Correspondence to Adrian Lenardic.

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Lenardic, A., Seales, J., Moore, W.B. et al. Communicating astrobiology in words not numbers and with facts not fiction. Nat Astron 7, 1009 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-023-02031-8

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