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117 Aliens and Bosons Skeptics argue that SETI researchers offer no definition of what will satisfy them that detectable civilizations do not exist. Their quest seems open-ended, never subject to falsification. After the international petition on SETI was published in October 1982, physicist Frank Tipler asserted that the radio search is not a sci- entific experiment because it cannot falsify the hypothesis being tested: that extraterrestrial civilizations exist. Drake seemed to confirm this when he wrote that “we can never prove the nonexistence of life, intel- ligent or otherwise, in the universe. No amount of failure in SETI endeavors constitutes proof that we are alone.” The lack of falsification is not unique to SETI. One cosmologist com- mented that there is so much “wiggle room” in current cosmological theories that they could not be disproved. Do we consistently apply the falsification standard in other scientific fields? Or are we setting a higher standard for SETI? Consider a recent Scientific American article about physics. A key prediction in physicists’ tentative theories about mass is a new kind of field that permeates all reality, called the Higgs field. If this field exists, theory demands that it have an associated particle, the Higgs boson. Using particle accelerators, scientists are now hunting for the Higgs. “These quanta must exist,” declared the author, “or else the explanation is not right.” Despite spending millions of dollars of taxpayer money, scientists from several nations have so far failed to detect the Higgs boson. Like some SETI researchers, they have found “tantalizing evidence” for their target just at the limits of their research instrument, in this case the Large Electron—Positron collider. May we now conclude that the Higgs boson does not exist? Early evolutionists too were regarded as people without any quantita- tive basis for their science. Yet, as Morrison pointed out, they were on to something profound.”° The Clarks, observing that SETI is on a grander scale than any other sci- entific survey ever undertaken, argued that there is no predetermined timescale for a successful outcome.” Others have offered more specific ones Attia predictions. How Much Is Enough? How Much Is Enough?