Jill Tarter of the SETI Institute (SETI once stood for “Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence”) has been named by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 most influential and powerful people of our time. Jill gave a wonderful opening talk at last year’s International Space Development Conference (the National Space Society’s annual meeting – this year is May 27-31 in Oklahoma City). They’ve accomplished a lot with little or no government funding, and she sees great prospects in some of the new projects they’re working on, in particular the new Allen Telescope Array.
Psychologist Steven Pinker is also among the 2004 “TIME 100”; other “scientists and thinkers” include physicist/mathematician Ed Witten, programmer Linus Torvalds, justice Sandra Day O’Connor, and jdoe’s hero, economist Bjorn Lomborg. A SETI Institute release talks a bit more about why Dr. Tarter deserves this recognition.
Since you mention my hero, I feel compelled to vote +1. :-)
As for SETI, I think it’s not a complete waste of money only in the sense that a negative result is still a result. SETI will never discover anything useful.
Why do you believe SETI will never discover anything useful?
Boy, you just hit the hornet’s nest. A thousand years of negative SETI results “proves” absolutely nothing about whether or not there is or was or ever will be intelligent life beyond the Earth. Our Milky Way is a very big damn galaxy with 100-billion-plus stars that have lifetimes of billions of years. If we could somehow scan one star in the Milky Way every single second and determine in that single one second scan whether or not it had ETs, it would take over 3000 years to complete the job. Obviously we CAN’T scan every single star, and for those stars we are able to scan, we CAN’T do a conclusive, comprehensive scan in a single second. Plus, we’d have to start the whole job over again at the end of our 3000 year scanning cycle to catch those new civilizations that had arisen since the last time we checked. SETI is a job that never ends and even negative results now don’t mean negative results would be obtained by our ancestors 100,000 or 1,000,000 years from now.
Plus, the correct scientific viewpoint is to say we don’t know what will be found, not a dogmatic statement that nothing will ever be found. Regardless of whatever the true odds are, SETI is too important an effort not to attempt. Period.
And besides, SETI has ALREADY discovered the varied people of Earth and their computers can unite in VERY impressive ways to accomplish ASTOUNDING feats of data reduction. This realization is already leading to unexpected positive results, and is a useful discovery.
So, jdoe, you are wrong.
Actually, SETI is right now on a much narrower search than just for intelligent life. Even for life using the electromagnetic spectrum as we humans did in the 20th century, it would be hard to prove much. Rather they are focusing on the very narrow possibility that other civilizations out there are deliberately sending out signals to make contact with different civilizations. Welcome or warning beacons. Because that’s really all we can detect at this point.
SETI has “discovered” something already. The potential of distributed computing. We already knew it would work, but no one knew if people would be willing to donate processor time, or if the logistics of it would be crazy… etc… so mabie SETI hasnt yet discovered “ET” but like the space program it seems that most of the benefits will come from the periphery.
Jason
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in the universe by monitoring radio signals for patterns is like trying to listen for a beautiful female talking iintelligently in a loud crowded bar — what are the odds?
While I support their right to look for signs of life or planets around other stars, it’s not something I care to have my computer’s CPU cycles indulge in.
I sure can’t argue that the odds of hearing the voice of an intelligent female in a bar are lower than finding an extraterrestrial radio signal. The intelligent females are all online with the internet, just like the ETs are probably all using tachyons or something like that for communication. It’s all about looking in the right place.
Speaking of which, are any of you SciScoop comment readers extraterrestrials yourselves? If so, won’t you please tell us?
(Hey, now they can’t say, “We’d have disclosed our presence long before now, but nobody asked…”)
the right bars yet :-). To continue YOUR analogy, it doesn’t mean the intelligent, beautiful females aren’t there, for those motivated to hit every bar. I’m glad you support SETI’s right to search, at least.
That’s not my point. I never made any claims about existence or absence of extraterrestrial life. My point is that SETI will produce negative results for the entire duration of program.
Here is a problem in your reasoning. First of all never is a very strong word. Do you mean never like in 10, 100, 1000 or a few million years? Do you really believe that 1,000,000 years from now our ancestors will still be passively scanning radio frequencies for signs of ET emissions? I don’t think so. I would not expect anyone to consider that a real possibility.
Our galaxy exists for over 10B years (12? 14?). I believe it’s quite safe to assume that the precise moment when SETI on Earth started was pretty random. Counting from the Big Bang it could have been 1B years earlier or 1B years later for random reasons – life, then intelligent life evolved earlier or later, random asteriod strikes, the course of civilization could have been different etc.
The galaxy has 1e11 stars. The huge majority is closer to the core than Sol where supernovae are frequent. Supernova is bad for life. Let’s say 0.1% is sufficiently far from the core – 1e8. It should be noted that a lot of starts are not visible – they are on the other side of the galaxy, too close to the core to see, behind dust clouds etc so 0.1% seems pretty generous.
Recent observation of ES planets show that highly elliptical orbits are not uncommon. Let’s say 1% of suitable stars has stable planetary systems with a planet at a right distance from the star. Stable sufficiently old star, stable orbit, right distance. 1% is also generous, I think. 1e6.
Then we can assume that at 10% of such planets intelligent life always evolves. 1e5.
We started radio transmissions about 100 years ago. We started listening to transmissions about 40 years ago. I believe in the next 60 years the technological progress will be so significant that SETI (as in passive scanning of radio frequencies) will become obsolete. So, humanity has about 150 years send and about 100 years recive window. I realize that the numbers are arguable, but that’s my estimate which I base my opinion upon.
Now we’ve got 1e5 civilizations listening for 1e2 years randomly spread over 2e9 years (and I think I overestimated the number of civilizations by a few orders of magnitude). The probability that we are listening when someone is transmitting is about 0.01. That’s if we listen to all those 10e8 visible stars in 100 years and they are always transmitting in all directions.
So, does it explain why I think SETI will always (as in the next few decades) produce negative results?
OK, I agree with you on this one. SETI does produce something useful beside negative results. But I did not say it’s a complete waste of money.
Save for the last amendment I don’t think so.
Do you really want me to stop posting here? Do you think this article would have any comments at all if it were not for my first comment you are modding to 1? Do you really believe posts praising each other are any fun to read?
No, they aren’t as fun to read as posts pointing out differing opinions, which is exactly what one poster did and happened to get high ratings for his comments. And don’t give yourself so much credit, jdoe…
Your comments are always at the very least thought-provoking, but I was more interested in the post by jxliv7 than I was yours.
If one is courageous/omniscient enough to make somewhat controversial statements with a totally authoritative tone, then one surely needs a thick skin when the feedback is less than what one desires.
I can speak only for myself, but I do not want you to stop posting. But you may have to expect negative reaction when other posters disagree, just as you are quick to nail anyone with whom you disagree.
I don’t think that any comment that sparks a great debate necessarily deserves high marks, especially if it’s not very informative itself. Your original comment just contained a quick, unsubstantiated opinion, whereas your Kapow? response, was very informative and well thought out and thus has a high rating.
…and in fact I agree very much with the logic you present. I personally agree with you that no positive results are likely to be found for exactly the reason you state – it’s a BIG, BIG universe in both space and time. I guess what rouses my fighting spirit is when you or anybody else says no, positively absolutely some future thing will not come to pass. (I’ll save everybody a mad rush to the search function by acknowledging I am guilty of this attitude myself more frequently than I wish.) As Cal and Sylvia would say (and probably be surprised to hear me say), faith is necessary to keep going. With the odds so monumentally against success, it’s so easy to say don’t try – yet don’t try is the only course of action that DOES make the odds of success truly zero.
SETI is just too important not to try. Not trying would be like saying that rubbing sticks together is no way to make fire, why bother to even try. I’m glad somebody did, way back during the Stone Age version of SETI – Search for Exotic Tree Ignition.
There are plently of projects which are too important not to try. It’s about funds allocation. For example, a thorough testing of GTR at the level which would allow to prove or reject vaious superstring theories seems more important and practical to me than SETI. Or building a large optical interferometer in space. The only practical results SETI is expected to produce is an upper limit on the number of human-level civilizations in the galaxy. And tool development.
I don’t like analogies bacause they are almost universally invalid. What you are talking about is Pascal’s wager. I.e. spending a trivial amount of effort to chase long odds for a possibly great reward. If the amount is trivial, I’d say let it be.
The cost of The current project (project Pheonix)is small 4-5 million a year and is funded by individuals and foundations. The reward isnt just great either, the reward is really the answering of one of man’s most fundamental questions (Are we alone in the universe?). Really the project on the whole is very beginin and has no real down side that anyone has put forth. the 4-5 million is raised without government suppourt so it really can’t be argued that this money would be able to be used for anyting else.
J n