WE WERE MADE IN AN ALIEN RESEARCH LAB: But it was the lab of an alien in an extraordinarily advanced technological civilization quite beyond our present understanding of things, according to Harvard theoretical physicist Avi Loeb.

Being a mere journalist, I, ever-so- humbly, take Loeb’s conjectural analysis at face value and offer three suggested flaws therein, then point to an analysis he offered on another occasion as the proper, broader context for understanding his perspective.

Loeb is a genius-level guy and his reasoning and insights should intrigue anybody who cares about the cosmic origins issues. And he has a sense of humor, as seen in his observation that “when I tell students at Harvard University that half of them are below the median of their class, they get upset.”