Ten days ago at BBC News Pallab Ghosh told us,

Scientists have found new but tentative evidence that a faraway world orbiting another star may be home to life.

A Cambridge team studying the atmosphere of a planet called K2-18b has detected signs of molecules which on Earth are only produced by simple organisms…

“This is the strongest evidence yet there is possibly life out there. I can realistically say that we can confirm this signal within one to two years.”

“Scientists find ‘strongest evidence yet’ of life on distant planet,” April 17, 2025

Gizmodo didn’t wait one to two years before declaring the find a “Bombshell Biosignature Report” — while noting that “scientists are urging caution before we declare a plankton party some 120 light-years away.”

At The Guardian however, Hannah Devlin offered a fair amount of space for skeptics:

Dr Jo Barstow, a planetary scientist at the Open University, also viewed the detection as significant, but said: “My scepticism dial for any claim relating to evidence of life is permanently turned up to 11, not because I don’t think that other life is out there, but because I feel that for such a profound and significant discovery the burden of proof must be very, very high. I don’t think this latest work crosses that threshold.”

“Scientists hail ‘strongest evidence’ so far for life beyond our solar system,” April 16, 2025

To the many people who follow the controversy closely, perhaps it doesn’t matter much whether the work crosses a threshold or not, so long as it keeps hope alive. And what is that hope?

Science writer Matt Ridley thinks that finding life on other planets in our galaxy would humble us, as we deserve:

It will be a fifth ‘Copernican moment’ when extra-terrestrial life is finally discovered: scientists putting yet another dent in human self-importance. They showed that the earth orbits the sun, not vice versa (Nikolaus Copernicus, 1543); that we are just another species of animal (Charles Darwin, 1859); that we use the very same genetic code as a cabbage (Francis Crick, 1953); that far from being sophisticated creatures, we have the same number of genes, indeed mostly the very same genes, as a mouse (the Human Genome Project, 2003). Humanity’s Fifth Copernican Moment, Rational Optimist Society, April 24, 2025

Image Credit: Rupendra143 - Adobe Stock

Overall, Ridley’s argument is nonsense. If we have the same genes as a mouse but are peering through the James Webb Space Telescope to look for life on a planet 120 light years away, the only possible conclusion to draw is this: What gives humans importance is not found in our genes. While it is unlikely that Ridley intended to do so, he has just come up with one of the stronger arguments for mind-over-matter dualism.

Let that be. For now, I’d like to draw attention to the fact that it’s not just finding life that is crucial to the committed; it is the search itself. They never lose faith despite many disappointments — in part because the search does the philosophical work that Ridley draws on when he attempts to deflate human “self-importance.” Finding ET is a bonus.

And within ten days…

Questions began to dominate the discussion.

At ZME Science: “Have scientists really found signs of alien life on K2-18b? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. We’re not quite there.”

At Ars Technica, “Skepticism greets claims of a possible biosignature on a distant world. It’s really difficult to get a clear sign of life on an exoplanet.”

From Universe Today, we learn why Webb may never be able to find evidence of life on another world: “Planetary atmospheres are complex, and the great distance makes understanding them more difficult.”

At Evolution News, Casey Luskin assesses the evidence:

At the end of the day, we must bear in mind that all the data we have from these exoplanets is a small amount of light that is reflected coming from their host star that is reflected off the planet. …

There are other examples in recent memory where detection of a molecule in an exoplanet led to premature declarations of alien life. A 2023 BBC story recounts:

“It is the first time astronomers have detected the possibility of DMS in a planet orbiting a distant star. But they are treating the results with caution, noting that a claim made in 2020 about the presence of another molecule, called phosphine, that could be produced by living organisms in the clouds of Venus was disputed a year later.”

Could something similar be happening right now?

“Fact Check: Did Scientists Really Detect Evidence of Life on Exoplanet K2-18b?,” April 19, 2025

Well, if the search itself creates excitement and gives meaning, something similar probably is happening now and will happen an indefinite number of times in years to come, whether or not any ET life is ever found.

The irony is that, as Wesley J. Smith noted here yesterday, finding life elsewhere would demonstrate rather than refute the exceptional nature of humans. Actually, even looking for ET does the same thing.

It’s not something we get away from even by leaving the planet.