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SETI: Is it a waste or worthwhile?
Dalboz
Resident Puppy EaterRight behind you...Registered User regular
Resident Puppy EaterRight behind you...Registered User regular
This news from the SETI@Home website:
This does bring up the question though as to whether SETI is actually a worthwhile endeavor, deserving of continued funding. Could SETI actually have a benefit, or is it just some scifi geek's wet dream? I used to have SETI@Home running on my computer, but began to question whether it was actually useful or contributing to the betterment of mankind. I now run Folding@Home, something that I hope will actually help advance medical science rather than simply asking some aliens nicely for the cure for cancer. Okay, that's an over generalization, but the question still remains: Is SETI a waste or worthwhile?
Edit: To update really quick, it does look like it's not just SETI at Arecibo that's in danger, but that the Arecibo Observatory may lose funding all together.
While to my understanding, the Arecibo Observatory is not the only part of the SETI project, it would be a major public blow to it, aside from the Arecibo Observatory also being used for asteroid impact predictions.Arecibo Observatory, the world's largest radio telescope and the source for the SETI@home data that your computer analyzes, faces massive budget cuts that will end its ability to continue the search for life beyond Earth. The decision to ensure full funding currently rests upon votes in Congress on Senate Bill S. 2862 and House Resolution H.R. 3737. These bills desperately need more support.
This does bring up the question though as to whether SETI is actually a worthwhile endeavor, deserving of continued funding. Could SETI actually have a benefit, or is it just some scifi geek's wet dream? I used to have SETI@Home running on my computer, but began to question whether it was actually useful or contributing to the betterment of mankind. I now run Folding@Home, something that I hope will actually help advance medical science rather than simply asking some aliens nicely for the cure for cancer. Okay, that's an over generalization, but the question still remains: Is SETI a waste or worthwhile?
Edit: To update really quick, it does look like it's not just SETI at Arecibo that's in danger, but that the Arecibo Observatory may lose funding all together.
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Unless there are aliens out there smart enough to be signaling us with a quasar or something, I don't think we are going to spot it.
SETI's Are We Alone, podcast thingy is kinda neat, and they've got a lot of people into crowd processing, or whatever, so now that the LHC is about to go online and start creating massive amounts data that's actually relevant we have that to use.
I think the resources could be better used. I think life is out there. I just don't think it matters much.
If I remember correctly, that's how pulsars were discovered. The scientist who found it thought it was an E.T. signal because of the regularity of the pulses, but it turned out to be a pulsar.
SETI has a tiny budget. It's something like $4 million a year. While I agree that the chances of actually finding extra terrestial intelligence are vanishingly slim, I've always viewed SETI more as "the search for interesting stuff in space". Like Dalboz said pulsars were discovered through this kind of thing and I don't think spending a tiny amount each year on scanning the skies for cool stuff is particularly wasteful.
PSN ID : Xander51 Steam ID : Xander51
We haven't even begun to explore what's possible yet, so to shut down programs like this seems such a waste, and self-defeating in the long term.
*How awesome is that? 8-)
Basically, it would be hands down the most significant discovery in human history by an order of magnitude. However, it has unknowable odds of sucess— could be one in ten billion, could be zero.
Yeah, I remembered hearing the $4 million figure somewhere, but have been unable to find anything to back it up. It's probably wrong, sorry about that.
According to their website they're a private non-profit now. Apparently congress stopped funding it in 1993 and it is now run almost entirely on donations.
I say, let's keep scanning away and see what we find. What else are we here for?
Is humanity going to forget its troubles and mobilize in an effort to contact them?
How do we know they'll actually give a shit about us? For all we know, our sense of extreme self-importance may be unique to our species.
And if they're advanced enough to detect our signal, wouldn't that introduce the possibility that they have found many other intelligent civilizations across the galaxy, so finding us would be even less remarkable for them?
Perhaps most importantly, how will religions respond to the existence of intelligent life somewhere else? What kind of response could we expect from them? Will they declare these aliens as godless heathens? View them as potential followers and start making plans to send missionaries or messages to convert them? Or will modern religion simply implode due to the realization that human may not be God's special child, that there are other children out there and we have to compete with them for God's favor?
What about people who will be proponents of extreme armament in the scenario that these aliens may not be friendly? Another arms race?
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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Didn't the Vatican acknowledge the possibility of extraterrestrial life recently, with some "we are all God's children" message?
Was this before or after they begged Stephen Hawking to stop contemplating the origins of the universe?
Also, it's just the Vatican. I think a lot of fundies would go apeshit because their little brains wouldn't be able to process it.
Any alien civilization will be hundreds or thousands of light years from earth. Two way communication and space travel will be impossible.
An advanced civilization that does not believe a Divine reality in the universe will be a theological problem. However, what if Jesus was there too?
What if they believe in more than one Divine power?
For all we know, the progression from polytheism to monotheism is not the only progression path for religion. They might have gone the other way.
Aliens really wouldn't be Space Mongols with funny foreheads or Space Soviets with funny foreheads or Space Elves with funny foreheads or whatever - they'd be totally different from us physically, psychologically, technologically. Really, would they have developed a concept like god? Even if they had, wouldn't they have matured out of believing in mysticism? Plus, it's not like monotheism is a more logical or developed concept than polytheism.
Like someone else mentioned, technologically would be pretty big. We don't communicate long-distance today the same way we did 2000 years ago, so are we really likely to still be using radio in 200 years time? Or 2,000,000?
As far as communication goes - our own radio waves would only have travelled 100 light-years tops, and if an alien species was looking at us from the other side of the galaxy they'd see us as cavemen.
if I thought you actually believed this I think it would have to find a way to come through the internet and hurt you.
but they're listening to every word I say
Well, not impossible, just so impractical as to be effectively impossible. Back and forth communication would have one heck of a time delay...
For all the panning it received, both the book and the movie Contact portray what IMO is pretty accurate portrayal of what would happen if there was a public announcement that we received an extraterrestrial signal.
Also, to update really quick, it does look like it's not just SETI at Arecibo that's in danger, but that the Arecibo Observatory may lose funding all together.
I remember hearing about an alleged "answer" to the message appearing in the form of a crop circle 27 years after the original was sent. It was quickly dismissed as fake for obvious reasons, but was wondering if any of you heard about it. It's a pretty interesting and original hoax.
original message
crop circle reply
edit: Also, apparently one of the symbols at the bottom has appeared in other crop circles.