Looking for other Earths? Here’s a list

msnbc.com ^ | 02/19/06 | Alan Boyle

[KevinDavis]

ST. LOUIS - An astronomer involved in a NASA mission to look for Earthlike planets beyond our solar system has winnowed through thousands of stars to come up with a top-10 list that includes some of the favorite haunts for science-fiction aliens.

Actually, the lineup from Margaret Turnbull at the Carnegie Institute of Washington is broken down into two top-five lists: one for the radio-based search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, and the other for the NASA mission, known as the Terrestrial Planet Finder.

The SETI stars will be on the list of targets for the privately funded Allen Telescope Array in California, which is due to begin limited operation with 42 linked radio dishes this spring. But the top prospects for the Terrestrial Planet Finder are currently in limbo, because NASA has put the mission on indefinite hold.

[Constantine XIII]

Beagles are like that, aren't they?

They are basically the canine equivalent of hobbits. :P

[KevinDavis]

I have a feeling that there is habitale planet in either Alpha Centauri A or Alpha Centuari B... Alpha Centauri has always interest me to..

[beezdotcom]

Since you refuse to click on the link and read the tutorial, the astute reader will conclude that your ignorance is self-induced. Ignorance is to be overcome, not celebrated. If you wish to live your life with your head in the sand, no one can force to you to learn anything.

Apparently, no one can force YOU to learn some manners.

And if you're brazenly going to assume that the sum total of human knowledge in any way represents a significant fraction of the number of things still left to discover and know, I could introduce you to a number of great thinkers in the centuries and millenia gone by that all made exactly the same ignorant mistake. Learn from THEM.

[beezdotcom]

I suppose it is appropriate under the circumstances to trot out my essay about the anti-knowledge Luddite

No, it's really NOT appropriate, at least not with the apparent target you've chosen. For some reason, you're so embittered over this topic that you launch on a hair-trigger at someone who made a mild (if weak) philosophical observation. Get over it.

[bvw]

Dear Gods of Science.

How many planets have your awesome majesties discovered?

Signed,
Young Bobby

---

To Our Most-Respectful and Loving Little Ignorant Peon Bobby,

The number of planets? What a question! Surely there will be billions and trillions, each with thriving extraterrestrial civilizations far more advanced then yours. Where Scientists, such as We, your Gods, rule!

However because Luddite politicians in YOUR puny backward culture have not opened the entire treasury of your nation to us, young Bobby, so far our efforts over ten years plus have only turned up 150 ir so! All because of the backwards religious anti-science bias of your mud-pit culture, young man.

Sincerely,
The Gods of Science

[longshadow]

"Festival of Unknowledge" placemarker

[longshadow]

Gee, if we know so little about how the Universe works as the anti-knowledge trolls suggest, how do they explain the following:

For the benefit of the lurkers, the graph depicted above represents the black-body radiation curve for Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR), which was predicted by the Big Bang Theory. Overlayed on the graph are the ACTUAL data of the measured CMBR. The error bars you see on the data points are exaggerated by a factor of 400 just to make them visible. IOW, for those who are brain dead, the actual data is such a close fit to the predicted values, it is virtually impossible to see any deviation from the predicted value AT ALL.

The challenge for the purveyors of unknowledge to whom I referred previously is to explain how the theory was able to make such a stunningly accurate prediction, if we know so little about how the Universe works. But I'm not holding my breath for an answer....

[relictele]

*THIS* IS SETI ALPHA 5!!!!!!

[NCC-1701]

Ok Khan, calm down.

ROTFLMAO!

[beezdotcom]

The challenge for the purveyors of unknowledge to whom I referred previously is to explain how the theory was able to make such a stunningly accurate prediction, if we know so little about how the Universe works. But I'm not holding my breath for an answer....

How do you walk around with such a friggin' big chip on your shoulder? Your strawman doesn't make much sense - we may still know so little, but we obviously know ENOUGH about enough things to make some accurate predictions. In mechanics alone, Newton's laws were stunningly accurate to the level of precision achievable by the science of the day...until finally, science achieved a level of precision that exposed quantum effects at one extreme, and relativistic effects at the other. In retrospect, it sure seems like there was an AWFUL LOT more to know than just Newton's laws.

To carry your rant to its extreme, we must already be so close to knowing everything that we should really defund most science, and just leave one or two scientists funded to "close up shop" - you know, dot the occasional 'i' or cross the occasional 't'. Which, of course, is poppycock.

At best, it's a draw. Until you actually know EVERYTHING, you really can't quite know how much you still don't know. If you want to heavily fund science, you had best make the case that there's still an awful lot left to discover. Or, you could just continue to finish working out Ptolemy's epicycles - I'm sure the equations are very nearly finished.

[PatrickHenry]

When I contemplate how little we know, my brain goes slack, I get a great feeling, and I wet my pants.
</luddite mode>

[OB1kNOb]

By the way, would you happen to know which of these planets is the one Al Gore is on?

Uranus.

[RadioAstronomer]

I like my rant better. :-)

hehe

[RadioAstronomer]

Why waste money on any astronomy programs? Lets shut it all down. /sarc.

[andy58-in-nh]

Uranus.

Ah: it's always the last place you look. ;-)

[beezdotcom]

Why waste money on any astronomy programs? Lets shut it all down. /sarc.

If people keep bristling at (and rejecting) the idea that there's a large percentage of knowledge left to learn, it MAY get shut down.

(Thus completing the sentence "WE NOW KNOW EVERYTHING...that we're ever going to have the chance to learn, since we talked ourselves out of our funding.")

[OB1kNOb]

Sorry. I just couldn't resist letting an algore/Uranus opportunity slip by. :-)

[RadioAstronomer]

Where did I say such a thing?

[billbears]

You may have added /sarc but I have no problem with it whatsoever. If there are advances to be made at it and it is profitable to do so, then private industry will take it over. In fact I would hope they do so. Either way, shut down federal funding of it.

[beezdotcom]

When I contemplate how little we know, my brain goes slack, I get a great feeling, and I wet my pants.

Improper use of the word "luddite" will soil your diapers every time. Opining about how little or how much we know has little to do with how aggressively we pursue and embrace new knowledge.

Wait, scratch that - someone who is already convinced that we know nearly everything might be more easily tempted to resist spending more money on new science to gain new knowledge that simply may NOT be out there (why spend 90% of your money on that last 10% of knowledge?). Maybe there IS a valid use of that word to be found in this thread...to describe those who find "dangerous" the concept that there might be even MORE knowledge awaiting science than has already been discovered.