|
Author
|
Topic: Is SETI barking up the wrong tree.
|
500_Apples
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 12684
|
posted 20 July 2006 11:56 AM
Is SETI Barking up the Wrong Tree? By Seth Shostak
SETI Institute
posted: 20 July 2006
06:24 am ET quote:
It’s been 46 years since Frank Drake aimed an antenna at the stars in the first modern SETI experiment. His hope was to hear a deliberate signal – guided into space by intelligent beings – rather than the natural, noisy dance of hot electrons. Since then, SETI has expanded its search space, bettered its equipment, and refined its strategies. But the bottom line hasn’t budged: still no confirmed chitter from the cosmos. Some people mistakenly confuse a long search with a thorough one, and figure that the lack of a SETI detection indicates that we’re alone in the Galaxy. This, however, is nonsense.
Link *** My observation, due to the age of the universe, I suspect intelligent aliens have pretty much colonized most of the galaxy, but that they're intelligent enough not to alert us to their presence. I think that for an intelligent society to go from rudimentary technological intelligence; certain behavioral adaptations like environmentalism and peacefullness are essential to prevent suicide of the species, and that these traits could just translate into wanting to leave developing species alone until they develop on their own.
From: Montreal, Quebec | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Howard R. Hamilton
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 12868
|
posted 20 July 2006 04:24 PM
A few theoretical ideas:The universe is about 12-15 billion years old. Big stars live a few 100 million years, and most stars live for a few billion years. The universe probably started out as just hydrogen, that had to be burned up in stars to create the other elements. Therefore, 2nd generation stars where there are a few other elements are probably only 6-8 billion years old, and the 3rd generation stars like ours are even younger. Life took about 2-3 billion years to start on earth, and then another couple billion years before tool using intelligence developed. This would make the chance that earth is close to the leading edge in intelligent species development a real possibility. If that is the case, what is the chance of picking up a signal from some other intelligence? Probably not that high. Like Seth says, the current search is anything but thorough. At 60 years, we have barely looked at the stars in our neighbourhood (60 ly search distance vs 100,000 ly diameter of the galaxy). [ 20 July 2006: Message edited by: Howard R. Hamilton ]
From: Saskatchewan | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
jw
recent-rabble-rouser
Babbler # 12946
|
posted 25 July 2006 02:43 AM
I no particular order:- we might be the first civilization to achieve high-tech
- sentience may be rare
- planets suitable for sentience may be rare
- the closest species may not use noise as a communication method
- the religious may be right and sentience was created here and here ONLY
- our universe may be, as Asimoz pointed out, a special case universe with us and only us in it etc. etc. Too many questions, not many answers. Keep looking and keep trying to answer questions.
From: Aylmer, ON | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Email this thread to someone!
