have they found anything?

[Roboramma]

We are still assuming that ET is around our age, perhaps a little older or younger.
But what if ET is a billion years older? No matter where in the galaxy he may hail from, his technology would seem like magic to us, surely able to pick up our feeble attempts at sending out any signal. He could be watching re-runs of Hogan's Hero's right at this very second. This kind of ET would want to colonize the galaxy if it hasn't already done so.

The laws of physics exist. There are limits to what technology can do. If a civilization's technology reaches those limits, another billion years won't get it anywhere beyond them.

There is no reason to believe that there is a way for them to detect our signals at this point. Its like saying, "if ET is a billion years old, it should have mastered the Force and felt our presence by now."
There's no more reason to believe that the particular magic technology you're assuming is possible than that "the force" exists.

 

[A. Zaitsev]

Isn't there an assumption that using the h-t-t-p://en(dot)wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_line [hydrogen line frequency] might be a reasonable universal freq that an intelligent, radio-technology-using civilization might use? But yeah--it's another dimension to the astronomical haystack.

Can you answer my other question--is there anything in between broadcast (weak dispersed signals) and the high energy, narrow focus signals you're involved with? Like some medium strength signal that could be aimed at a larger section of the sky (but not omnidirectional)?

I wonder if there might not be a benefit to trying some kind of shotgun approach (rather than using either a hand grenade or a squirrel rifle, by analogy).

The "magic frequency" (21 cm/2*Pi)=3.36 cm I like better then 21 cm -- it is so called "Makovetsky Frequency", which is mentioned in
your URL.

 

[amb]

No one will win this argument until we travel to another planet and discover whether life is possible there. If we find microbial life anywhere within our solar system, then the chances are good that the whole galaxy and others are teeming with life. The molecular building blocks of life are sitting out there in the cold, tenuous gas between the stars. The question is how many rocky planets in the Goldilocks area of a star and the star itself being of the right kind to harbour and make life flourish in the galaxy on such planets.
Even that could turn out to be unnecessary if life is found on a moon such as Titan for example where the sun provides no heat at all and is covered in ice. We have found bacteria in the Antarctica and in a volcano, so why not?

 

[Roboramma]

No one will win this argument until we travel to another planet and discover whether life is possible there.

What do you think you are arguing?

I for one have only been arguing that your understanding of evolution is wrong and your prediction of the likelihood of extra terrestrial civilizations is off.

The fact that the laws of physics limit technology, for instance, doesn't require waiting until we travel to another solar system to confirm.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

No one will win this argument until we travel to another planet and discover whether life is possible there.

Not really. There's a logical argument, and your position isn't logical. (See again the numbered points that refute your argument based on Fermi's Paradox.)

And the position most of us hold is the one stated by Sagan--that we don't know because there isn't any evidence. So it actually acknowledges that we don't have the evidence.

At any rate, the results of traveling to another planet won't answer the broader questions anyway. There's no reason to think THAT planet would be typical either, whether it has no life, simple life, or complex life. Your position is the claim of knowledge about the galaxy based on the absence of evidence. My position (and I think that of most of us) is that your position is not supported. In this case, the absence of evidence does not provide evidence of absence.

 

[popscythe]

But.. but.. the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence, therefore aliens are real and I must worship them.

 

[arthwollipot]

Pfft. Raelians.

 

[amb]

I'm only looking at the myriad of coincidences that produced intelligent life here as a guide besides reading that book Rare Earth which made me think of the odds. Were I a bookmaker I would be fabulously rich betting such odds.

 

[LarianLeQuella]

This kind of ET would want to colonize the galaxy if it hasn't already done so.

No. A HUMAN BEING would want to do that. Who says that any sort of ETI would posses any of our human motivations? They could be vastly more intelligent than us, yet be satisfied with a society based on philosophy or art. Who says that all ETIs will do technology like us?

Again, I keep harping on this, stop thinking like a human...

 

[LarianLeQuella]

I'm only looking at the myriad of coincidences that produced intelligent life here as a guide besides reading that book Rare Earth which made me think of the odds. Were I a bookmaker I would be fabulously rich betting such odds.

They only SEEM like coincidences (it's a post hoc ergo propter hoc of the highest magnitude)... Again, you are looking at it totally backwards (LIKE a creationist, hence why Joe keeps asking you if you have somehow become one).

 

[Nosi]

Is that still around? Yeah I thought that was pretty cool too.

Yea, I got the Linux version of a copy and run it when my computer's on stand by, although I turn off my monitor & speakers at night so I don't get the screensaver effect. I run other software at night that doesn't require me at the helm so why the heck not, SETI can run too when there's a few extra bits of RAM laying about.

PS and FYI, I'm all for SETI. I just think it's pointless and does nothing for a "pro SETI" viewpoint to rip on someone because they dared to question it.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I'm only looking at the myriad of coincidences that produced intelligent life here as a guide besides reading that book Rare Earth which made me think of the odds. Were I a bookmaker I would be fabulously rich betting such odds.

The arguments in Rare Earth have been thoroughly debunked. On top of that, I've shown that they're primarily based on the ideas of an explicit Creationist.

That "myriad of coincidences" you speak of aren't necessarily required, as you keep claiming.

You're repeating the same old stuff that's already been well refuted on this thread.

 

[amb]

That creationist was responsible for one chapter of that book only. The rest of it is food for thought.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

That creationist was responsible for one chapter of that book only. The rest of it is food for thought.

Nonsense.

According to Ward and Brownlee, "Guillermo Gonzalez changed many of our views about planets and habitable zones." (From the preface.)

ETA: From a Salon interview with David Darling:

I contacted Peter Ward and asked how much Gonzalez influenced him in the writing of the book. He replied, "He's been a major influence about the importance of some features of the earth that are unique to Earth and that we believe are important in the rise of complex life." I then said to him, "Did you know that Gonzalez writes extensively as a Christian apologist, defending the view of intelligent design?" And he said, "No, I had no idea of this. Are you sure?" Then he wrote to Gonzalez and asked for an explanation and Gonzalez said he wasn't making any apologies for the fact that his religious beliefs affect his science and vice versa (Hansen, 2001).

Linky.



Also, the central methodology of the Rare Earth is a Creationist argument--you take every possible observation of anything that may have influence the Earth and treat it as a prerequisite to intelligent life on Earth and then say, "What are the odds against that?"

It's backward thinking. And the Rare Earth theory has been thoroughly debunked in all its particulars long since. The example I keep using is that R.E. says that a gas giant like Jupiter is needed to sweep up debris and reduce the number of catastrophic impacts with the Earth-like planet. I've shown that you could as easily argue just the opposite--that if we had such impacts that pushed the ecological reset button more frequently than ~every 50 million years, maybe intelligent life would have evolved sooner.

You can't assume that the Earth is ideal and perfect in every way.

And punctuated equilibrium argues that an environment that is ideal and perfect in every way isn't likely to spur rapid change anyway.

But we've gone through all this before on this thread.

 

[Nosi]

We don't know that E.T.s are not colonists either, or that our Earth has not been colonized as we don't know what to look for or how far back. Colonists don't need to be smart either, they just have to jump planet to planet and somehow survive the journey. They've done that inside meteorites as microbes. Panspermia comes to mind.

 

[amb]

All the elements that make up the earth and finally us are produced in giant stars that have gone supernovae spewing carbon and all the other matter that make a rocky planet possible. In between the stars are clouds of dust that contain all the elements that can produce life on a suitable planet where Darwinian evolution takes over once the inorganic material becomes organic. No one is arguing that this doesn't take place everywhere conditions are right. Intelligence? I may be wrong, and probably am, but it may be extremely rare regardless of what that idiot Gonzalez says. By intelligence, I mean a technology one not an animal type.
Was an apology ever published by the authors of Rare Earth for misleading their readers? After all, they are respected scientists both of them.

 

[Roboramma]

Intelligence? I may be wrong, and probably am, but it may be extremely rare regardless of what that idiot Gonzalez says. By intelligence, I mean a technology one not an animal type.

So, do you have some way to differentiate "animal" and "technological" intelligence since the last time you posted this?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

So, do you have some way to differentiate "animal" and "technological" intelligence since the last time you posted this?

Yup--once again, amb's arguments rule out Earth as a site of intelligent civilization since absolutely ALL intelligence on this planet is, arguably, limited to the animal kingdom.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Was an apology ever published by the authors of Rare Earth for misleading their readers? After all, they are respected scientists both of them.

I have no idea, but at the very least I can say Ward & Brownlee are not respected scientists because of Rare Earth. If they're still respected scientists, it is despite the damage they've done to their reputations with Rare Earth.

For the record, Ward is a geologist and paleontologist and Brownlee is as an astronomer and astrobiologist (according to Wiki).

 

[Skeptic]

We don't know that E.T.s are not colonists either, or that our Earth has not been colonized as we don't know what to look for or how far back. Colonists don't need to be smart either, they just have to jump planet to planet and somehow survive the journey. They've done that inside meteorites as microbes. Panspermia comes to mind.

In that case, maybe we ARE the colonists. Thought that still leaves open the issue where life evolved originally.