Seti@home pointless?

[JoeTheJuggler]

Now your just being overenthusiastic about any result.

My not.

 

[Bill Thompson]

Most people seem to be much too hung up with UFO's when discussing this subject and you never get to other aspects or facts. When a friend or family member is stuck on UFO's and thinking they are from extraterrestrials, nothing else matters because, in their mind, they already exist and they already are here.

So, the them, of course SETI is useful because of course they will get a signal. To them, this is only showing us where all the UFO's are coming from.

 

[AWPrime]

Unlikely, I haven't met a SETIer that believes in UFOs.

 

[lightfire22000]

Wouldn't intelligent life on other planets think we're idiots for sending radio signals randomly into space?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Unlikely, I haven't met a SETIer that believes in UFOs.

I agree.

Bill, lumping people who aren't willing to reject the possibility that we might make contact with an ETI in with people who think UFOs are ET spacecraft is a strawman argument. It would be comparable to claiming that anyone with any criticism of the Bush and/or Obama administrations is a 9/11 Conspiracy Theorist.

 

[Bill Thompson]

I agree.

Bill, lumping people who aren't willing to reject the possibility that we might make contact with an ETI in with people who think UFOs are ET spacecraft is a strawman argument. It would be comparable to claiming that anyone with any criticism of the Bush and/or Obama administrations is a 9/11 Conspiracy Theorist.

No. It is just an observation. I have just observed that talking to people often requires crossing the UFO berrier.

You assuming that I am lumping people in is a strawman argument.

Let me ask you something, "Joe the Juggler". Do you think this is an "argument" that I "want to win". It is not. My view is something that I would love to be wrong about. So, let me ask you this. Why do you suppose I believe as I do?

I believe as I do because I am aware of some of the variables that need to be just precisely right in order for there to be life and I am aware of some of the variables that need to be precisely right in order for there to be intelligent life.

Let me ask you something else. Let's say there are tens of millions of planets in our galaxy that are in the sweet spot where there is liquid water, and have the right envoronment for life to thrive -- let's say that if someone was standing there, they would find it a nice temperature and radiation free and, apart from the missing plant and animal and microbial life, a paradice -- does that mean they would automatically have life?

 

[AWPrime]

I have to agree even further with Joe. There is also a logic problem -> why bother with SETI if UFOs are real?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

No. It is just an observation. I have just observed that talking to people often requires crossing the UFO berrier[sic].

You didn't present it as a record of personal observation, but as a truism. Frankly, I don't believe that most people you've met who don't reject SETI (or even support it, whatever that might mean) believe that UFOs are ET spacecraft.

See AWPrime's comment. I don't think these two groups have a lot of overlap.

Let me ask you something else. Let's say there are tens of millions of planets in our galaxy that are in the sweet spot where there is liquid water, and have the right envoronment for life to thrive -- let's say that if someone was standing there, they would find it a nice temperature and radiation free and, apart from the missing plant and animal and microbial life, a paradice -- does that mean they would automatically have life?

I'm not sure what you mean by "automatically".

ETA: Since "automatically" means "by itself" the only alternate view I can suppose is something like through the intervention of a deity or Designer or some such, and I reject that.

I think matter obeys the laws of physics and chemistry everywhere in the universe.

So if the conditions were right for polymers to be formed spontaneously, then I think it's almost certain that any polymer that is self-replicating would become more abundant in any given sample. If the elements for forming vesicles exist, then the vesicles would form and would trap stuff inside of them. Since the self-replicating molecules would be more abundant, then they too would be in the vesicles in greater numbers. Again, through chemistry and physics, these vesicles probably would tend to form tubules that would break off (essentially dividing) and the most abundant molecules would be more likely to be represented in each "daughter" proto-cell.

All the prerequisites for natural selection are in place, so life would be off and running.

So, in sum, I think that if there were conditions as you describe, I would be very surprised if we didn't find life. But this is just speculation.

My position is based on the fact that the laws of physics probably operate the same everywhere (OK--I'm not talking about in or near a black hole or anything exotic like that), and I can think of no reason why the processes that led to life here wouldn't happen elsewhere.

The big question is whether similar conditions exist elsewhere.

I apply my same approach to that question: the things that led to the conditions on Earth are also the result of the laws of physics. Given the size of the universe (or even the galaxy), I don't see any reason to assume it's unlikely that these conditions won't exist elsewhere. The arguments made in the Rare Earth Theory have been pretty well debunked. At the very least, I don't find them compelling. (In many cases they're merely speculation, and speculating the exact opposite can be just as compelling.)

 

[Bill Thompson]

added below...

 

[Bill Thompson]

The BBC had a very cool interactive instructional presentation online showing how microbial life is constructed. It was divided into two parts. One part was called The Science and the other half was called "Reality Check".

It seems you are like the sort of person that clicked on "The Science" and was excited at how microbes are constructed without clicking on the "Reality Check".

Under the best of conditions, life coming into existance is so improbable that we would not believe that it could exist apart for the fact that it does, in fact, exist here on Earth.

It is a pipe dream to think that if an environment for life to thrive is found on another planet it will means that life will come into existance.

We know what all the parts of a microbe is made of. But is is still impossible for us to put one together just right so it will get going. If it is impossible for us to intentionally make one, the odds of one coming together ever is insanely low.

You didn't present it as a record of personal observation, but as a truism. Frankly, I don't believe that most people you've met who don't reject SETI (or even support it, whatever that might mean) believe that UFOs are ET spacecraft.

See AWPrime's comment. I don't think these two groups have a lot of overlap.





I'm not sure what you mean by "automatically".

ETA: Since "automatically" means "by itself" the only alternate view I can suppose is something like through the intervention of a deity or Designer or some such, and I reject that.

I think matter obeys the laws of physics and chemistry everywhere in the universe.

So if the conditions were right for polymers to be formed spontaneously, then I think it's almost certain that any polymer that is self-replicating would become more abundant in any given sample. If the elements for forming vesicles exist, then the vesicles would form and would trap stuff inside of them. Since the self-replicating molecules would be more abundant, then they too would be in the vesicles in greater numbers. Again, through chemistry and physics, these vesicles probably would tend to form tubules that would break off (essentially dividing) and the most abundant molecules would be more likely to be represented in each "daughter" proto-cell.

All that sounds like hitting the right numbers in a huge lottery even giving the best of the best environments.
You say " then I think it's almost certain " but I think if you would look at this honestly you would rather say "I think its as improbable as improbable can be"

Once again, this is what the large number of stars tell me. We exist because there had been a huge number of players in the lottery to get one winner --- I mean, in our galaxy, of course.

It is all a matter of statistics.

If it wasn't. If it would just fall into place easily and commonly then two things would not be true:

#1. Earth would not be so lifeless without any microbes at the beginning of its history
#2. As Fermi noticed, ETI would have come about long before we came on the scene and the whole galaxy would be colonized by now.

All the prerequisites for natural selection are in place, so life would be off and running.

So, in sum, I think that if there were conditions as you describe, I would be very surprised if we didn't find life. But this is just speculation.

My position is based on the fact that the laws of physics probably operate the same everywhere (OK--I'm not talking about in or near a black hole or anything exotic like that), and I can think of no reason why the processes that led to life here wouldn't happen elsewhere.

The big question is whether similar conditions exist elsewhere.

no it isn't.
there could be planets that are otherwise identical to earth but lifeless becuae earth was like that once.

I apply my same approach to that question: the things that led to the conditions on Earth are also the result of the laws of physics. Given the size of the universe (or even the galaxy), I don't see any reason to assume it's unlikely that these conditions won't exist elsewhere. The arguments made in the Rare Earth Theory have been pretty well debunked. At the very least, I don't find them compelling. (In many cases they're merely speculation, and speculating the exact opposite can be just as compelling.)

You are almost there but you drop off at the end. Given the best conditions, it is still a roll of the dice but in an even bigger way. Having the perfect conditions for life to survive is not the same thing as saying that live will exist. Did you get that? Having a lottery ticket does not make you a winner.

Life, in its simplest forms is still a complex machine. A chemical compound that can make perfect copies of itself is the big win -- as in winning a lotter with the right numbers.

For hundreds of millions of years. Earth was perfect for life. But was lifeless. The lottery win had to happen and by chance a self-copying primitive microbe had to fall together in all the churning and bubbling of chemicals. It does not happen very often. And once it happens it has to keep going and going and going. After it starts, it has to be just right where there is enough environmental influences to allow for mutation and evolution. Just the right of mutation and evolution too. Not too much and not too little.

A lottery is a good analogy. Every week, there are millions of potential lottery winners. And yet, many times, despite it is POSSIBLE that there could be lots of winners, there is often just one. So I think is the case with our galaxy.

This Rare Earth crap sounds like a religion. Is it? Nice try to just blow me off as a quack. It won't work.

One bottom line is that Fermi was right. If intelligent live evolution was common and not like a lottery, they would be just walking down our street. It is not speculation.

I would rather believe in a bitter truth than a pleasent and fun lie.

The idea that the only beings like us are us in our galaxy seems to me, given all the facts and evidence and statistics and physics and chemistry, to be a bitter truth.

On the other hand, the idea that we are going to get a radio signal from an advanced civilization seems to me to be a pleasent and fun lie.

And, like I said, I would rather believe in a bitter truth than a pleasent and fun lie.

SETI seems to be to have all the earmarks of a faith or something people want or even need to believe in.

This explains why some people have confessed to me that people get upset about this topic. I get a simular rage discussing islam to a muslim or Mormonism to a Mormon or scientology to a scientologist. If I am wrong, why are you so pissed off? Normally if someone says something that is way off base, the typical approach would be to laugh it off. Instead I get hounded by wack jobs who follow me from one webforum to another on this particular topic.

 

[Roboramma]

Under the best of conditions, life coming into existance is so improbable that we would not believe that it could exist apart for the fact that it does, in fact, exist here on Earth.

It is a pipe dream to think that if an environment for life to thrive is found on another planet it will means that life will come into existance.

We know what all the parts of a microbe is made of. But is is still impossible for us to put one together just right so it will get going. If it is impossible for us to intentionally make one, the odds of one coming together ever is insanely low.

The problem is that we still don't know how life started on the earth. The science of abiogenesis is still too young. So we don't know the odds. We don't know how difficult it is for our kind of life to get started, nor to do we know how many other kinds of life are possible, and how difficult those kinds of life are.

You may be right - it might be that life getting started is such an increadibly unlikely event that looking for it elsewhere (especially in the form of technological civilizations) is useless. On the other hand, that may not be the case.
Life may be very common in the universe. It might be that in the right conditions it comes in to existence very quickly, and it might also be that the right conditions are quite common.

We don't know yet.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

The assertion that the example of the Earth somehow argues that life is improbable doesn't hold up. We know nothing about how probable abiogenesis is. (ETA: But we do have pretty much all the details of how it happened on Earth--at least we've got a solid theory.)

We don't know if conditions on Earth were prime or relatively bad. So taking every possible characteristic of the Earth and calculating the odds of that constellation of conditions is just the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy.

Back to the lottery analogy--if you've got a billion (or hundreds of billions or hundreds of billions of billions) of tickets, you know darn well you're going to have multiple winners.

Even unlikely events--like one in a million--happen all the time when there are truly large numbers involved. Having a lottery ticket does not make you a winner, but that would be analogous to arguing that every planet has life, and no one is arguing that position, so it's a straw man. Having billions of lottery tickets does guarantee you a win.

At any rate, as I've said over and over, the position I hold is that we simply don't know, but I see no reason to believe that the laws of physics operate uniquely on the Earth or that the Earth is somehow unique in the universe.

 

[Bill Thompson]

The problem is that we still don't know how life started on the earth. The science of abiogenesis is still too young. So we don't know the odds. We don't know how difficult it is for our kind of life to get started, nor to do we know how many other kinds of life are possible, and how difficult those kinds of life are.

You may be right - it might be that life getting started is such an increadibly unlikely event that looking for it elsewhere (especially in the form of technological civilizations) is useless. On the other hand, that may not be the case.
Life may be very common in the universe. It might be that in the right conditions it comes in to existence very quickly, and it might also be that the right conditions are quite common.

We don't know yet.

But I think it is the case. I have talked at length with the best biologists. I have that luxury. I was lucky. I was smart enough and lucky enough to attend the AAAS in Saint Louis and talk with both NASA scientists and biologists. In fact, there are lots of hurdles to cross going from dead stuff to a working cell "machine" capable of making copies of itself.

Here is another clue. It took a hell of a long time for earth to get its first microbes. If it was an easy thing, it would have happened right away.

And then it took a hell of a long time for those cells to join in colonies like they did.

A special I saw on PBS described it perfectly. If you could compress the entire history of earth down to a 24 hour period it would go like this:

From Midnight until sunrise there would be nothing on earth. No microbes. Nothing.

From sunrise all the way until sunset.... the entire daylight hours... there would only be microbes on earth.

From sunset and into the evenings there would be plants, animals and such.

Only a few moments before the stroke of midnight would human beings appear.


So just in using Earth as an example we can see that life in the universe is rare (ahem, earth is part of the universe). What is more is that life strung together in colonies is rare. What is more is that intelligent life is also rare.

Not only is it just like winning the lottery. It is like winning the lottery several times in a row. That almost never happens.

These are just a few pieces in the puzzle that form a picture of reality to me. Fermi's paradox is another piece. I also think the explainations people give for Fermi's Paradox sound too much like religious appolgoists whose goal is to have faith in something that is not real.

It is not illogial to think that just because you have a planet that looks good for life, you are not necessarily going to have life.

It is not illogial to think that just because you mocrobial life on a planet you are not necessarily going to have plants and animals

It is not illogial to think that just because you have plants and animals you might not have intelligent life.

What is more is that Nature works AGAINST life, not with life. Life has struggled to get a foot hold and survive against the forces of nature.

We have both nature and statistics working against our existance.

Another force against us is time. The Earth is middle aged now. The Earth is middle aged because the sun is middle aged. Sure, we came into existance, but we came into existance very late in our planets life. It may be likely that other planets perfect for life do not beat the proverbial clock.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

These are just a few pieces in the puzzle that form a picture of reality to me. Fermi's paradox is another piece. I also think the explainations people give for Fermi's Paradox sound too much like religious appolgoists whose goal is to have faith in something that is not real.

That's just name calling. Can you respond to the numbered arguments I have made against the argument based on Fermi's Paradox?

1.) The galaxy could be full of civilizations exactly like ours, and we are undetectable to even our own technology not so far from here. At best you're only proving that much more advanced civilizations haven't existed for a long enough time to fill the galaxy with probes.
2.) The argument assumes a technology that is impossible by today's science. I'm not saying I know for sure FTL or near lightspeed transportation will never be achieved, but it's a weak argument that assumes that such a thing is certain.
3.) Even if this tech is possible, the argument assumes that all intelligent civilizations will necessarily achieve everything that is possible. It could be that civilizations don't last long enough to, or it could be that it's economically unfeasible even if they do.
4.) Why do you use the absence of probes as evidence that no other intelligence in the galaxy exists and not that no other intelligence in the entire universe exists? If we're assuming magic technology, then why not assume quick and easy intergalactic transportation? [n.b. this was in response to amb's specific slant on the Rare Earth argument, and doesn't really need to be answered by Bill Thomson]
5.) The probes would have to be absolutely ubiquitous for it to be impossible to have missed one. What if one passed through, checked out the Earth, and went on its way a mere 1 million years ago?

In this case, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

The strongest point is that you could use the Fermi Paradox argument from the point of view of an ET just like us located elsewhere in the galaxy. They wouldn't be able to detect us, so they would declare that we don't exist. Yet we certainly do exist.

ETA: That is, using the "Why aren't they here?" approach to decide whether or not "they" exist could be turned around to ask, "Why aren't we everywhere in the galaxy?" Since we're not, then we must not exist. It's obviously a bad argument.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

It is not illogial to think <snip>

It is not illogial to think that <snip>

It is not illogial to think that just because you have plants and animals you might not have intelligent life.

That something is "not illogical" does not argue in favor of an assertion (like the assertion that we are unique or rare).

What is more is that Nature works AGAINST life, not with life. Life has struggled to get a foot hold and survive against the forces of nature.

Nature doesn't work either for or against anything. Saying so is to commit the pathetic fallacy.

At any rate, this sounds like you're using our samples size of one biosphere to argue that it was difficult or unlikely for life to have arisen. Yet at the same time you argue that the Earth is exactly just right for life--uniquely suited for it. We don't know either of these things, and they seem to conflict with each other.

We have both nature and statistics working against our existance.[sic]

What does that mean? Nature has no intention. What statistics are you talking about?

Another force against us is time. The Earth is middle aged now. The Earth is middle aged because the sun is middle aged. Sure, we came into existance[sic], but we came into existance[sic] very late in our planets life. It may be likely that other planets perfect for life do not beat the proverbial clock.

Or it may be that the Earth was a particularly slow developer. It may be that conditions on Earth aren't as perfect as you think. Or it may be that complex life only arises when conditions are traumatic. A huge part of what made complex forms of life a relatively (Cambrian) development was how long it took to pollute our atmosphere with oxygen. There are other situations that could result in an oxygen-rich atmosphere much earlier. For that matter, we don't know for sure that something other than oxygen could have spurred on more complex life forms.

The fact is, we don't know.

 

[shadron]

And then it took a hell of a long time for those cells to join in colonies like they did.

A special I saw on PBS described it perfectly. If you could compress the entire history of earth down to a 24 hour period it would go like this:

From Midnight until sunrise there would be nothing on earth. No microbes. Nothing.

From sunrise all the way until sunset.... the entire daylight hours... there would only be microbes on earth.

From sunset and into the evenings there would be plants, animals and such.

Only a few moments before the stroke of midnight would human beings appear.

Well, nothing changes like science. Particularly what we know about the early Earth.

For example, http://www.colorado.edu/news/r7cadd9fb58e8ed47366b4c4079a0deea.html

Now, the late heavy bombardment occurred around 3.9 billion years ago (http://www.palaeos.com/Hadean/Hadean.htm#Geological_Time-Scale ); on your clock, that would be about 3:45AM. And this paper is speculating that microbial life pre-existed that; they speculate as far back as 12:35AM.

Now, granted,these are whacko geophysicists, but they are published in Nature and work for the astrobiology/xenobiology unit of NASA. They have the explicit endorsement of at least one astrobiologist. The Imperial College in London has also released a separate paper supporting this conclusion.

The first Eukaryotes (single celled with interior symbiotes) are suspected of living 2 bya, or about 1:15PM, true multicellular at 6:30PM.

There are also thought to have been between one and three episodes of snowball Earth^WP in the time period from 600 to 800 million years ago (between 7:45PM and 8:50PM) which may have delayed the appearance of advanced multicellular forms because life presumably would have been driven back to less specialized primitives living around thermal vents. For a guage, the Cambrian Explosion started about 9:15PM.

I'm not clear on whether all this weakens or strengthens your argument; perhaps both. It perhaps shows a smooth progression from the simple to the complex, and a vast ability of life to cling through adversity, like snowballs and monstrous bombardments.

 

[shadron]

This explains why some people have confessed to me that people get upset about this topic. I get a simular rage discussing islam to a muslim or Mormonism to a Mormon or scientology to a scientologist. If I am wrong, why are you so pissed off? Normally if someone says something that is way off base, the typical approach would be to laugh it off. Instead I get hounded by wack jobs who follow me from one webforum to another on this particular topic.

Speaking only for myself, this is the only forum I've ever worked with except for primitive uucp newsgroups a long time ago, so I have no idea what whack jobs you are referring to following you around. All of the people in this thread, afaik, have been here longer than you have. However, I note that this was your first thread on this site (first one I saw, anyway), and you've managed to keep it going, single-handedly on your side, for about 180 messages. As far as I know, only you have declared SETI to be a religion; The Atheist may think it, but he doesn't say it that way, and at any rate has not joined you here. If you think this topic as bothersome and is not worthy of discussion, why did you came here and open it up? It sounds to me more like you go from forum to forum trying to pick fights.

If you think you've got fleas, then either spray them or take them outside.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

This explains why some people have confessed to me that people get upset about this topic. I get a simular [sic] rage discussing islam to a muslim or Mormonism to a Mormon or scientology to a scientologist. If I am wrong, why are you so pissed off?

Who's getting pissed off? Who's raging?

Sounds like you're conducting a side debate entirely in your imagination.

ETA: At most, I get frustrated when you and amb keep raising the argument based on Fermi's Paradox without responding to the points I made (and numbered) months ago. Actually, that's a lie. I rather enjoy whipping that out.

 

[Bill Thompson]

Who's getting pissed off? Who's raging?

Sounds like you're conducting a side debate entirely in your imagination.

ETA: At most, I get frustrated when you and amb keep raising the argument based on Fermi's Paradox without responding to the points I made (and numbered) months ago. Actually, that's a lie. I rather enjoy whipping that out.

It started at Bad Astronomy. They would say so and so or such and such who works for NASA has lots of faith in ETI and things such and such project should be launched to gather data at a particular star system. I would say, sure he would, his job would depend on it. Then they would come back and demand proof that this NASA engineer was basically a scam artist.

I did not visit the discussion thread every day. And so I would miss out when they temporarily banned me for not answering their questions promptly.

if that is not getting pissed off I don't know what is.

Lots of amature astronomers are also Star Wars or Star Trek geeks. Finding ETI is thier holy grail and they have religious devotion to the notion that we are not alone in the galaxy.

I made a list of at least 2 dozen problems that life would have to overcome in order to come into existance. Their need to poke holes in that list was intense.

It got to be a joke that I could not take seriously.

Then the morons followed me over to another web site. ANd finally one moron has followed me here. I will not name names.

Sorry I missed your points about Fermi's Paradox. Is it like a religious apologist argument? Right now I am exchanging heated arguments with Mormons from FARMS and FAIR and LDS as they try to explain how their views might be true. Will I get that same sinking feeling when I read how you have explained away Fermi's Paradox?

Listen, even SETI literature say that what they do is based on "faith" and "hope"

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

It started at Bad Astronomy. They would say so and so or such and such who works for NASA has lots of faith in ETI and things such and such project should be launched to gather data at a particular star system. I would say, sure he would, his job would depend on it. Then they would come back and demand proof that this NASA engineer was basically a scam artist.

I did not visit the discussion thread every day. And so I would miss out when they temporarily banned me for not answering their questions promptly.

if that is not getting pissed off I don't know what is.

So you're not responding to anyone or anything that was posted on this forum, right?

You said, "If I am wrong, why are you so pissed off?" It's the "you" that threw me. You're addressing someone in the second person who isn't present or you're responding to something that was said on another forum and not this one.

Lots of amature[sic] astronomers are also Star Wars or Star Trek geeks. Finding ETI is thier holy grail and they have religious devotion to the notion that we are not alone in the galaxy.

And some are not. So you're just prejudiced against amateur astronomers.

I made a list of at least 2 dozen problems that life would have to overcome in order to come into existance[sic]. Their need to poke holes in that list was intense.

And I suspect they were fully able to debunk that list. At best, many items on these lists are speculation. I've pointed out that it's often just as valid to speculate the opposite.

The biggest trouble is that arguing for a rare or unique Earth involves arguing that sometimes traumatic upheaval or less-than-ideal conditions is what spurs on life and at the same time arguing that the Earth is so incredibly "just right" that complex life isn't likely to occur again. (BTW, I think you've already recognized that this business calculating the odds against complex life is the same approach that Intelligent Design/Creation proponents use.)

Sorry I missed your points about Fermi's Paradox. Is it like a religious apologist argument? Right now I am exchanging heated arguments with Mormons from FARMS and FAIR and LDS as they try to explain how their views might be true. Will I get that same sinking feeling when I read how you have explained away Fermi's Paradox?

Bill Thompson, I call shenanigans. I've posted my refutation of the argument based on Fermi's Paradox at least twice in this thread. Now you're even replying to one of the posts where I've repeated it, but while you can't be bothered to read it much less answer the points I've made you unfairly characterize my arguments as being religious somehow, when they're clearly not.

Please do not raise Fermi's Paradox again until you have read and answered my points. Until then, I can see you're more interested in carrying on about your paranoid delusions regarding members of other forums, a topic I have zero interest in discussing, and one that is clearly off-topic.