His battle is only partly about Oumuamua. That is just a vehicle for his arguments. The real issue is the bias against life detection experiments generally. Want to sample soil on mars and measure oxygen absorption? Great. We will put your sensor on the next rover. Want to pour nutrients on that soil and see if anything eats it? Go away you crazy person. Want to detect methane in an exoplanet atmosphere? Here is your telescope time. Want to detect CFCs, a likely technosignature? Good luck getting them to return your emails. That bias against definitive binary life detection efforts, solid yes/no answers, underpins Loeb's points on Oumuamua. If we are serious about life detection we should be looking for indisputable artifacts of both primitive and complex life, the later of which includes technological life.
Loeb must also fight against widespread public assumptions about the hunt for life, specifically that people think SETI is a giant organization always scanning the sky. The public thinks the scientific community is actually putting in a solid effort to look for aliens. They aren't. We as a society spend more on candycrush than the entire SETI project. Want a definitive answer on whether the next Oumuamua is a light sail? Cough up the money so the scientists can buy the telescope time.
Loeb must also fight against widespread public assumptions about the hunt for life, specifically that people think SETI is a giant organization always scanning the sky. The public thinks the scientific community is actually putting in a solid effort to look for aliens. They aren't. We as a society spend more on candycrush than the entire SETI project. Want a definitive answer on whether the next Oumuamua is a light sail? Cough up the money so the scientists can buy the telescope time.