The future of the search for alien life is with Harvard’s Avi Loeb

Avi Loeb leaned in, grabbed my hand and said, “Be as critical as you like.” What, after all, was one more critic? He resembled a caricature of a scientist, his body wiry and short, in a plaid tailored suit, holding an expression that suggested both the severely etched Oppenheimer and the anxious, chain-smoking lawyer Martin Short played years ago on “Saturday Night Live.” Certainly, that’s the image many of his peers seem to hold for Loeb: one part austerity meets one part sketchy. He is a theoretical astrophysicist. He teaches astronomy at Harvard University and chaired the department for nin...