SETI: Science or Pseudoscience?

[Interesting Ian]

I'm surprised I'm the only "pseudoscience" voter. SETI is rather firmly mired in the "hopes and dreams" category of science; it's about as scientific as a multimillion dollar search for Bigfoot or a unicorn. It may be conducted in a scientific manner, but the underlying reason is wishful thinking at best - and quite possibly just plain nonsense.

Huh?? Are you saying that the prospect of intelligent life elsewhere in our Galaxy (Universe?) is extremely unlikely?? How on earth come you come to such a bizarre conclusion?

OK, I'm essentially guessing, but my opinion is that life will be very common, but intelligent life, on a comparable level to us, will be comparatively infrequent, and even those few whose intelligence is comparable to our own will be extremely unlikely to have the technology to communicate.

So basically SETI is pretty much of a forlorn hope. at least for the immediate future. But I certainly think it's worth it!

 

[Interesting Ian]

I find these kind of topics insulting. If you were trying to make a case for the legitimacy for research into 'psi' stuff just say so in your topic.

Having said that I think we have 'some' reason to suspect that some alien life form is out there that we might be able to contact. I agree with scribble that the chances of us finding something is fairly unlikely but I don't think it is completely a shot in the dark. We know that intelligent life arose on this planet and we know that there must be other planets out there with similar conditions as ours. It might be very unlikely that any of these planets harbor aliens that decide they want to send a message to us but I don't think it is comparable to invisible unicorns or "psi stuff" where we have no reason to suspect the possibility of its existence.

Oh yeah, no reasons at all. Just that such phenomena has been reported throughout the history of mankind, and across all cultures, and all the scientific evidence supporting its existence continues to pour in. Yeah, no reason at all

 

[Dragon]

Originally posted by scribble
Then there's also the fact that I imagine our first contact - if it ever occurs - will be "in person". For reasons that are too complex to go into here, but no less supportable than the wild speculation on the part of SETI. And infinitely more cost-effective.

Can't let you get away with this "too complex" remark, scribble - I'm genuinely intrigued - why do you think that our first contact will be in person?
Worthy of a new thread, I think.

On the current topic, perhaps SETI is not quite science as it is based on an unfalsifiable assumption but, I'm with Paul -

What's wrong with a little wishful thinking, as long as you don't convince yourself that your wish has come true without some evidence?

By the way, what is the current estimate for N in the
Drake Equation?

 

[Interesting Ian]

Here is an interesting page I just found: http://www.theness.com/articles/seti-nejs0101.html.

What a load of unadulterated nonsense! From the link.

Henry Palka

It is important for skeptics to realize that Carl Sagan’s theories of extraterrestrial life are just as pseudoscientific as Uri Geller or the Bermuda Triangle. Not only is there no evidence whatsoever for extraterrestrial life

That's not relevant. There are many things that we can expect the existence of but which we have no evidence for. Those who propose there is no EL need to give reasons for supposing this. Given that there will be planets scattered throughout the Universe similar to the Earth's before life arose on it, they need to specify why there is a vanishingly small probability that life could arise on such planets (they couldn't say it is 0 probability because life arose in at least one instance, namely on the Earth)

but it fails to meet the criterion for falsifiability that science requires.

It doesn't require it at all!! This is a stupid myth perpetuated by materialists/skeptics

Just because some thesis is unfalsifiable doesn't necessitate it is false. Otherwise materialism and determinism would be false.

The true believers, such as Frank Drake and Jill Tarter, simply will not tell what observations will convince them that “exobiology” is false. In short, it is a religion, not a science.

The sheer stupidity of this guy is breathtaking.

British astronomer Ian Ridpath said that exobiology (EB - the study of extraterrestrial life) has the lowest ration of published papers to evidence than any other field, including parapsychology (PP - the study of extrasensory perception).

Where is the information that parapsychology has a very low ration of published papers to evidence come from?? I find this difficult to believe. Lies put out by skeptics.

Anyway, it is clearly wholly irrelevant in the context of ET. We would not expect to find evidence. Indeed we could search for a million years, never find any evidence, yet it would not constitute any reasons or evidence whatsoever that no life exists in the rest of the Universe.

The main body of evolutionary biologists are very skeptical of the existence of extraterestrial life (ET).

For what reasons??

It is true, however, that many astronomers and physicists, in contrast to evolutionists, believe in ET. It is also true that more physicists believe in ESP than psychologists do. Those scientists who know most about the two subjects are also the most skeptical.

Psychologists don't generally know more about parapsychology. They're just more knowledgeable with the various ways people can misinterpret the information entering their senses, or are able to be fooled.

 

[Jeff Corey]

A number of years ago at Aricebo, we were talking to the science director, who described how the SETI search is piggy-backed onto the other projects.
It takes no time away from high priority projects. The SETI At Home project crunches data when home pcs are not in use. And it's science in the initial sense of, "I wonder if the are any signals out there?"
I don't see what all the fuss is about.

 

[Interesting Ian]

You can't falsify the fact that humans are here now. So never.
It happened once, for certain.
How many times has telekineses happened for sure?

Nothing in life is for sure. Other hypotheses are always possible. You need to take a hard look at the evidence.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Now, I'm with you that they're too far away (in time, space, or both) for us to communicate with in the foreseeable future, assuming they're communicating in a form we could recognize at all. But that's a far cry from comparing the entire concept to psi.

[/B]

It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the search for psi. There is a vast abundance of evidence for psi.

 

[Interesting Ian]

SETI, however, only requires that it is possible for intelligent life to exist outside the Earth.

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Exactly as a Psi experiemnt only requires that it is possible for Psi to exist.

No, neither the search for EL nor the search for psi merely require that. We need to have reasons to suppose they exist before we waste time and effort in searching. In both cases we have excellent reasons.

 

[Interesting Ian]

What can invisible pink unicorns do?
Hypothesis: Whatever they want. Say be sensed by the chosen elite while being invisible to anyone else.
Test protocol: Say they must exist, since your friend saw them. Or have the elite place invisible pink unicorn fodder in a box, move the box into one of ten stalls, have the elite (and the masses) guess which stall the unicorn went to.
Results: the tests have been completed a large number of times, and there has been no evidence so far, despite the sporadic piece of noise.
Report: the unicorns don't like to be tested, so the tests failed. Or they migrate, and were only present during the noise period.

What can psi stuff do?
Hypothesis: changes every time a new psi player / tester turns up. So let's pick one. Say Zener cards?
Test protocol: Say it must exist, since your neighbor's friend heard about it. Or have people sit down, concentrate on cards, find out if they were right (protocol has been horribly mutilated, sorry).
Results: the tests have been completed a large number of times, and there has been no evidence so far, despite the sporadic piece of noise.

Yeah, and you are a despicable liar. Get your facts straight sunshine.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Wait - you're confusing the issue. Yes, we know that life exists. But that's not what SETI is setting out to demonstrate or find. If it were, we'd be done already. It's setting out to prove that life exists ELSEWHERE - and that is something we've got absolutly no basis to believe.

WOW!! Does your breathtaking stupidity know of any limits???

First of all, if the Universe is infinite, then necessarily there must be an infinite number of planets bearing life since we know the probability is not zero.

Secondly, even if the Universe is not infinite, we nevertheless do not know its size. Therefore we cannot say the existence of life elsewhere is unlikely.

we still don't knwo that the probability of getting life isn't so slim that Earth itself isn't a giant cosmic fluke.

I'm highly skeptical regarding claims such as that a particular state of affairs is so because of a huge statistical fluke. More prosaic explanations tend to win out and are to be preferred.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Why not? Why assume that it can only happen here? That would be a close-minded approach.



Not entirely true, either. We have plenty of indications that conditions similar to where we find life here on Earth - volcanos and oceanic sulphur springs - exist in other places.

We've seen that life is incredibly good at spreading out into very different environments, from extremely cold climates, to extremely hot climates, even when oxygen is absent.

Add to that: It seems that life began very, very early on Earth, and the conditions were not that different from what we see elsewhere in the Universe.

The more we learn, the more likely it seems that life can exist outside Earth. The recent Mars findings look very interesting, to say the least. Probably not green tentacled bug-eyed Martians, but perhaps microscopic life forms? Not impossible at all.

SETI is a hell of a lot cheaper than a mission to Mars, too....

Some excellent points. I agree entirely.

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

It's impossible to know when it's done, it's impossible to estimate any chances of succeeding

Nonsense. A properly conducted experiment is always a success. Whether the results are interesting or not is a matter for the universe.

 

[CFLarsen]

You have!! Over and over! I think SETI is poop. I've outlined some reasons. I've pointed you to a page with many more.

OK.

What do you want from me, blood?

"I ate Scribble's liver with some fava beans...and a nice Chianti..." (making Hannibal Lecter slurping sounds)

And get no reply...

Yes, you do.

Yes, I think I understood you the first time. You mean a project similar to, but not SETI. This is a critique of SETI we're having here, so it's off-topic, you see?

No, I meant the SETI project. Ah, fuggedaboutdid...

Finding microbial life on Mars would suggest a lot of things to me about the possibility of life existing on other planets. It wouldn't do anything measurable to help SETI.

Why not? We'd know that life wasn't constrained to this damn ball, so it would definitely be a huge step forward.

Now you're seeing my point. SETI is one of those projects people shouldn't be just pouring money into.

Now I am not seeing your point. I think SETI should absolutely be funded.

What would I have us do to find ETI? Not go looking. There's lots of good science that needs funding, that should get money before raw speculation does. Then there's also the fact that I imagine our first contact - if it ever occurs - will be "in person". For reasons that are too complex to go into here, but no less supportable than the wild speculation on the part of SETI. And infinitely more cost-effective.

I would very much like to hear why you think the first contact will be "in person".

 

[Correa Neto]

SETI has flaws? Sure. A lot. The main one is that it supposes there are alien civilizations (voluntarily or not) sending radio signals near enough from us in terms of space and time to be picked by us. Is this argument questionable? Sure.

Is it worthy? Sure. Its cheap, it does not cause problems to other more expensive projects. Anyone has a better idea other tham just sit down and wait, forever discussing if there are or not civilizations like ours around, without reaching a conclusion? Even a negative answer is better than no answer.

If you ask me what are useless research projects, I would say- the development of more powerfull biological, cghemical and nuclear weapons. And they cost much more than SETI.

Edited, as always, to correct the typos I found. Search for more, and you'll find more..

 

[RichardR]

For those people that have voted Science, how is SETI different from searches for 'psi' stuff, and if it is science, where is the evidence so far?

Two major differences I can think of:

1) It's not claiming to have found anything yet, and

2) presumably it won't until it actually does find something.

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

SETI does NOT presume that there are aliens beaming signals at us. SETI presumes that there might be aliens beaming signals at us; this is a very reasonable assumption to make.

 

[Brian]

Brain, if the premise isn't there there are ETs, then what do you think they're looking for?

The premise should not be yes there are, or no there's not.
Just: we have one example (us), lets go look for a second.

 

[T'ai Chi]

Edit to add: read the link that T'ai chi posted, and really think about the issues involved. You don't have to side against him just because he's wrong about other things; that's not very skeptical of you.

LOL, I'm "wrong" about other things like.... ?

 

[T'ai Chi]

You can't falsify the fact that humans are here now. So never.
It happened once, for certain.
How many times has telekineses happened for sure?

So the reasons why life might exist out there is because we exist here, and the universe elsewhere has the same physical properties and laws as there is here. That seems reasonable to me. Where I think it drifts into argument by analogy somewhat is believing it plausible that life elsewhere might have developed communications technology, and they might be doing the same thing we are, searching for intelligent life elsewhere.

 

[toddjh]

Wait - you're confusing the issue. Yes, we know that life exists. But that's not what SETI is setting out to demonstrate or find. If it were, we'd be done already. It's setting out to prove that life exists ELSEWHERE - and that is something we've got absolutly no basis to believe.

All we know is it happened once. That in *no way* indicates it will or has happened again.

I disagree. It is by far the more absurd claim that we are a unique phenomenon in this universe than that we are but one of many instances of intelligent life out there somewhere.

I agree that it is an open question, and probably always will be, but the argument that we are the sole intelligent civilization in the universe smacks of Ptolemy. Read up on the Copernican Principle, and see how much better off our science was when we stopped believing we were at the center of everything.

Just as an exercise, I'd like anyone to try to give me a number - any number - for how likely it is that we will find life elsewhere.

If the universe is indeed spatially infinite (as a hyperbolic geometry, which appears to be the case with our universe, implies), I would argue that the probability that there is other intelligent life out there approaches 1. I agree with you, however, that the probability that they are close enough for us to find them is likely quite small.

Jeremy