Inauguration Day for Alien Signal-Hunting Telescope

Space.com ^ | 11 October 2007 | Seth Shostak

[Freeport]

Testing... Hello...Hello? Can you hear me now?.... Is this thing on?

[DungeonMaster]

We’re alone, except for God and the angels.

[fieldmarshaldj]

The aliens have already landed.

[wastedyears]

Maybe they could find my home now.

[Fitzcarraldo]

If they are out there, they don’t want us to listen in, because if they are out there, they would be fully capable of broadcasting a discernable signal across megalight years.

[Freeport]

Boring place this God of yours created then... Mines a bit more on the adventurous side...

[Kevmo]

These guys are wasting their time and money. We’ve been having an interesting discussion on how astronomically low the SETI chances are, once you look at the Drake equation with respect to the chances of things like the chance formation of amino acids.

The origin of species, and Everything Else: coping with evolution and religion
National Review via The Free Library ^ | October 8, 2007 | Jim Manzi
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1904271/posts

Posted on 09/29/2007 6:12:27 PM PDT by Tahts-a-dats-ago

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You can enter your own values into the Drake Equation here:

http://www.msnbc.com/modules/drake/default.asp

[KarlInOhio]

BSOD = Big Set Of Dishes

[Squidpup]

[Calvin Locke]

When the Arecibo dish was activated, they broadcast a message to a star, maybe a galaxy, 22,000lys distant.

So, we were smart enough to make it kilolight years.

That, and message only lasted about three minutes, iirc. That was about the limit that they figured the crowd could last ooohing and ahhhhing about a hunk of metal directing invisible EMR towards a non-visible destination.

[SengirV]

Å great waste of space then.

[Sybeck1]

Hey, if its their money let them spend it.

But this is probably the same crowd that wants you and me to pay from their crumb crunchers medical bills with SCHIP.

[DuncanWaring]

Remember what Michael Crichton said about the Drake Equation.

Aliens Cause Global Warming.

As a result, the Drake equation can have any value from "billions and billions" to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science.

[Kirkwood]

The Drake equation is statistical masturbation.

[ari-freedom]

radar was developed as a result for a search for a super death ray

[sourcery]

But can it locate illegal aliens?

[saganite]

ping

[seemoAR]

I was wondering why it wasn’t put on the mexican border. Oh, I forgot, no one is illegal. ;o)

[tpanther]

hmmmm, so boring that He created not only yours, AND ours which you can’t somehow perceive?

[kailbo]

Nope, we’re alone.

Nothing boring about it though...