SETI....Worthless rubbish OR Worth Trying Anyway

I don't think the argument for/against SETI is about their competency, we are limited by current technology and I'm sure they are doing their best given that.
No one believes these guys are idiots. Its really about will they find anything.

Look, I dont know what frequences or what part of the electromagnetic spectrum they are listening to and it does not matter. These people at seti@home have been discussing this amoung themselves for years. They are not idiots and I trust them.

Its about trust. I trust that the people that are in control of the project are doing the best they can to addapt their search methods the more they learn.

If you agree that searching for other life is a good idea then you have to trust the people who have been debaiting this for years. You have to trust that they are not mindlessly searching the same place, in the same way, all the time.

Anyway, seti@home is about the only way that you or me could get involved in this search anyway. And its free. It does not cost you a penny of your time or money.

The part of the em spectrum that they are searching is IMO clearly the most sensible place to look for what they are looking for.

Its not about trust though, its about them putting their arguments for that search sace forward and having it reviewed and then given resources. Thats what happened, a bit like every other research project. If they proposed looking for alien TV signals they would never have got a penny!

The details of the search are freely available, as are the methodologies used. Strong coffee recommended!

Using seti@home does cost us something though in a round about way. By using your computer for seti@home means that you are not using it for say einstein@home or climate change modelling. The cost is that there is less processing power going into gravity wave detection and climate prediction. (with bionc you can assign different percentages to different projects btw)

About six months ago I came across this article dealing with signals form outer space.
Here’s the link. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow_signal

By the way this is my 100th post so this makes me a Star, gone are my days of being a proto. :lol:

About six months ago I came across this article dealing with signals form outer space.
Here’s the link. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow_signal

By the way this is my 100th post so this makes me a Star, gone are my days of being a proto. :lol:

Welcome to the main sequence

Bart.

SETI spokespersons consider and promote themselves as society's elite in the quest to learn whether this galaxy, or even universe, is inhabited by other intelligent societies. They claim to own the only legitimate charter to carry out this quest and they view with disdain, disgust, and sneering mockery any challenge to what they feel is their exclusive right.

In putting down those who wish to pursue non-SETI lines of search for an alien presence in the universe, far or near, SETI proponents may invoke Karl Popper's criterion for distinguishing true scientific research from metaphysics:

"Scientific methodology exists wherever theories are subjected to rigorous empirical testing, and it is absent wherever the practice is to protect a theory rather than to test it."

SETI whatever advances it may make in the application of technology to its search, continues to target civilizations whose technology mirrors that of our own circa 1960 when SETI was conceived. However, there is a path by which a somewhat more generalized SETI is beginning to move beyond the old rigid definition.

For example, OSETI, (Optical SETI) had a struggle for some years during the 1990s to be accepted. This research was being pioneered by amateur astronomers for some years before the professionals started there own research programmes in the last few years.

There are other methodologies other than orthodox SETI,

The Search for Extraterrestrial Artifacts (SETA) provides another important example of SETI incrementalism at work. SETA is a search within our solar system for artifacts placed by ET civilizations employing technologies that our own society could envision. The Russians have been researching this area for some years.

A further development of the SETA idea is SETV (The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Visitation). A strategy for searching for evidence of robotic ETI-based probes within the solar system, telescopic searches for them were actually carried out at two major observatories.

In fact, recent SETV research has made more progress than SETI in obtaining data as against no data 46 years from SETI.

In conclusion, there are other SETI methodologies that even the amateur astronomer can contribute to the science besides orthodox SETI@home.

Eamonn A

SETI spokespersons consider ... besides orthodox SETI@home.
Eamonn A

Could I safely assume you voted NO in the poll?

Personally, I haven't voted yet but I'm very tempted to vote NO just because of the stage-irishism of the green-white n' gold sig, the pint o' Guinness Avatar and other things that would not be politically correct to mention.

Couldn't we just broadcast a video image of a Pint with a Shamrock on top? I think that would say all that needs to be said. If them there aliens are smart enought to know we're here, they'll know it's their round.