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Why is the US alone in SETI?

shadron said:
Here's a question I read about on Yahoo this morning: Why is the US alone in conceiving, maintaining and funding SETI? It would seem that it's extremely small cost would make it a natural for Europeans to join in on, or invent their own version, but they don't. Why not?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20080508/sc_space/whydonttheydoseti

Does this guy have the answer?
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An interesting read. I would be curious to see in this context how many cpu-hours per capita are spent running Seti@Home.

Added: After some provisionary examinations with the help of de Dutch SETI statitics page and Eurostat population statistics one can conclude that the average American has earned twice as many SETI@Home credits as the average European.


With regards to the 1 guilder (in todays money: 1 dollar) per year question, I think most people in the Netherlands would feel that that money would be better spent elsewhere. Sure the discovery of Extraterrestrial Intelligence would be a great scientific discovery, but given the current state of technology that knowledge would remain fairly abstract. We cannot contact them, we cannot travel there...

In other words: Curiosity for curiosity's (spelling?) sake is all well and good, but where's the beef?
 
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I agree with our dutch friend, I'm afraid. It's great if you have the cash, but we've plenty else to spend it on.
 
Phaedrus74 said:
In other words: Curiosity for curiosity's (spelling?) sake is all well and good, but where's the beef?
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To me, the beef would be discovery: the discovery that we are not alone, that we are not the only creatures created by God (pick a God, any God), that we don't have to self-destruct, that we can grow and thrive as a species.

Can you imagine Benny Hinn and his ilk's reaction to the realization that their God may not be the only God, that other beings have the outright temerity to have other beliefs? That alone is worth the price of admission!

Michael
 
coalesce said:
To me, the beef would be discovery: the discovery that we are not alone, that we are not the only creatures created by God (pick a God, any God), that we don't have to self-destruct, that we can grow and thrive as a species.

Can you imagine Benny Hinn and his ilk's reaction to the realization that their God may not be the only God, that other beings have the outright temerity to have other beliefs? That alone is worth the price of admission!

Michael
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What does picking up radio waves have to do with self destructing? And again what's the connection with thriving.
And as for God, any God, give us a break.
 
fagin said:
What does picking up radio waves have to do with self destructing? And again what's the connection with thriving.
And as for God, any God, give us a break.
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To me, proof that there are other species out there that have the technology to try and look for others intelligent species means that just because we humans have a savage, violent streak in us that we don't have to give in to it; that we can evolve past that savagery to a more productive, positive path.

Insofar as my God comment, I'm sorry if you took offense to it. Certainly, I meant none. My personal viewpoint is that one's belief system is no better or worse than another's belief system. If your belief system is different than mine and works for you, well then, good for you. Mine works for me. There's room for more than one.

Michael
 
coalesce said:
To me, proof that there are other species out there that have the technology to try and look for others intelligent species means that just because we humans have a savage, violent streak in us that we don't have to give in to it; that we can evolve past that savagery to a more productive, positive path.

Insofar as my God comment, I'm sorry if you took offense to it. Certainly, I meant none. My personal viewpoint is that one's belief system is no better or worse than another's belief system. If your belief system is different than mine and works for you, well then, good for you. Mine works for me. There's room for more than one.

Michael
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Why do you naturally assume that aliens wouldn't be savage or violent.
They could be Klingons.
 
Anyway by all accounts spending a fortune on hi tech is pointless, just take one hick redneck, set them down on a deserted highway at night, and wait for the probers to turn up - works every time, I believe.
 
fagin said:
Anyway by all accounts spending a fortune on hi tech is pointless, just take one hick redneck, set them down on a deserted highway at night, and wait for the probers to turn up - works every time, I believe.
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Well, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

And I thought the hicks get probed on fishing trips and in southern swamps?

Michael
 
fagin said:
Not for much longer-

Worf reveals that the tribbles were hunted down and exterminated by the Klingon Empire; specially-trained warriors were sent to kill every tribble in existence, and an armada of Klingon vessels obliterated the tribble homeworld. - wiki
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Hoisted by my own petard...yet once again!!

Michael
 
Carl Sagan was enthusiastic about SETI because he felt that should we find evidence it would mean that a species is even able to evolve from where we are today as we currently don't have the technology that would allow us to contact others in the same (or a similar) fashion. (As I remember the article anyway.)

And I think it would have something of an impact on the religious, because it seems a little odd that Jesus didn't just die for our sins, but for the sins of beings that aren't even able to conceive of a Jesus. (Or something similar for other religions...)
 
coalesce said:
To me, the beef would be discovery: the discovery that we are not alone, that we are not the only creatures created by God (pick a God, any God), that we don't have to self-destruct, that we can grow and thrive as a species.
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Make no mistake, I appreciate the significance of the discovery and that it would be very exiting. I am merely trying to clarify the reasoning behind not engaging in such a project.

With regards to the fact that the dicovery of extra-terrestrial intelligence would be a reason to assume we won't self-destruct. I think your reasoning is flawed considering the fact that we are trying to detect coherent radio-signals. Plenty of time after the invention of radio to self-destruct for any civilization.
 
fagin said:
What does picking up radio waves have to do with self destructing? And again what's the connection with thriving.
And as for God, any God, give us a break.
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Fermi's conjecture, that there are no viable alien civilizations since if there were they would be here in contact with us now, can be countered by any number of arguments. One of the most contentious is that advanced civilizations may inevitably self-destruct soon after developing atomic and nuclear technology. Now, that might be just atomic era paranoia, but it might also be true. This is formally known as the Doomsday Argument (see Fermi ParadoxWP). However, receiving a signal from an advanced civilization would at least demonstrate one counter-example, and thus vastly weaken that depressing argument. That is what Coalesce is referring to, I think. At any rate, the probability of destroying civilization is one of the more imponderable factors in the Drake EquationWP.
 
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shadron said:
Fermi's conjecture, that there are no viable alien civilizations since if there were they would be here in contact with us now, can be countered by any number of arguments. One of the most contentious is that advanced civilizations may inevitably self-destruct (presumably due to atomic weapons). Now, that might be just atomic era paranoia, but it might also be true. However, receiving a signal from an advanced civilization would at least demonstrate one counter-example, and thus vastly weaken that depressing argument. That is what Coalesce means, I think.
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Thank you for saying more clearly what I guess I couldn't.

Michael
 
Kilgore Trout said:
And I think it would have something of an impact on the religious, because it seems a little odd that Jesus didn't just die for our sins, but for the sins of beings that aren't even able to conceive of a Jesus. (Or something similar for other religions...)
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Until we all get together, compare notes and discover that some buddy guy died on all the planets 2000 years ago!

:D

ETA: for B5 wonks, that's sorta a new take on the whole Vorlon trick... ;)
 
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I think it comes down to cost/benefit analysis. Sure, it would be cool if we could detect alien radio signals. But, we are extraordinarily unlikely to. So, even if the costs are low, the potential benefit is much, much lower. Having one country looking into seems to be more than enough.


ETA: Another question, perhaps more silly, but still relevant: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=113216
 
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The premise in the OP is flawed. The US isn't "alone" in SETI. It looks like a majority of SETI@home users are Americans, and I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of the financial supporters are Americans too. But that doesn't mean all the donors are Americans.

As far as government funding, SETI doesn't get any, from the US government or anywhere else.
 
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