Is SETI Barking up the Wrong Tree?

space.com ^ | 07/20/06 | Seth Shostak

[KevinDavis]

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.

[KevinDavis]

[Jet Jaguar]

Top four reasons people suggest for why SETI hasn’t found a signal

1. "You’re counting on the aliens using communication technology (radio, light) that’s oh-so-last century. They will be far beyond this."

2. "If hi-tech societies or thinking machines were out there, they’d have colonized the Galaxy by now. Clearly, we’re alone… lone… lone."

3. "The aliens don’t want to communicate with us. Look at what we’re doing to the planet!"

4. "You SETI types are just looking in the wrong places. We know where the extraterrestrials are: on a planet in the Zeta Reticuli system."

[neodad]

I stumbled across "Majority Report" on Err America while on vacation in California. That's proof enough of aliens for me.

[Jet Jaguar]

I should clarify.

The above post is from the article.

[muawiyah]

Or, maybe they're here and we just don't realize it. Story on the net the other day concerning a bacteria that grows "wires" under certain conditions. Then there was the story yesterday announcing the formal discovery of the bacteria that ingests gold ions and spits out gold plate. That one also referred to a copper mining bacteria.

Now I can imagine some "evolutionary" tales to deal with the gold and copper mining critters, but it's the bugs that grow wires that are right off the wall.

[KevinDavis]

You got 3 out of 4 right...

[cerberus]

I agree that the lack of success of the SETI project to date means nothing.

Although I have participated in SETI, I think it is somewhat far fetched to think that another civilization would be beaming radio messages our way. Even though we on earth are "advanced", we are listening but not, to my knowledge, attempting to transmit anything to possible alien worlds so why would they. Also, given the distances involved and the vastness of the radio frequency spectrum, it is not at all surprising nothing has been heard.

It makes sense to me to keep trying, but failure to find an "intelligent" signal means nothing.

[KevinDavis]

I agree.. We don't have the technology to properly communicate from the Earth to space...

[Viking2002]

I ran SETI@home until last year, and now I've got BOINC running in my tray. I figure I'll get crowned king before it turns up anything, but it's a hoot just because of the 'what if' factor. Cool screensaver, too.

[SunkenCiv]

King, eh? Which country? I've got my eye on Outer Baldonia.

[SunkenCiv]

My usual contribution to SETI topics:

"But I am not really willing to accept your premise, because it may well be that the means of communications they have are of a kind that we do not know how to receive, and that they would not have the means of communicating with sufficiently powerful radio or optical signals. That is something which, technologically, is too difficult for them but they would have some other means we would not recognize." -- Thomas J. Gold, 'Communication with Extraterrestial Intelligence' (Sagan, ed)

[Hawk1976]

My belief in the SETI is not important. The important thing os to focus on getting to, living, and using the resources that space has to offer.

If there are alien races out there, and I don't take a real stand either way on that, we will discover them in the process of seeking new resources. We'll have to deal with what we find when we find it.