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SETI Gains Respect, NASA Funding
securitas writes "After having its funding cut off by Congress a decade ago, the SETI program has just received a NASA five-year grant (Google link) to participate as a lead team in the NASA Astrobiology Institute, which investigates the origin and future of life in the universe. For more information, see the Astrobiology Institute's announcement and the NASA press release."
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God, is that you?
Speaking at Defcon 12 - Credit Card Networks Revisted: Pen
Sometime back, we read NASA withdrew funding for DARPA, IIRC. What's so compelling for NASA to pump more funds into SETI? Some kind of social engineering at work here, methinks.
It's ironic, but NASA seems to be getting more attention after a spectacular failure (Colombia disaster)
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Or, of course, the Bible could be a collection of parables rather then a dogmatic belief structure that does not allow outside thought, interpretation, and possibilities. The idea that the Bible, which has undergone more revisions then Enron's accounting books, is still 100% accurate from the words of the original authors of the scripture is hardly possible. Bias, new passages and "modern" thought creep in (try the King James version for some of the best of that). Therefore, it should not be taken as absolute fact, but as a structure to base belief on, not the absolute belief itself.
It's got some good ideas, but just because something doesn't appear in the Bible does not mean it's heretical. (For one thing, I daresay neither computers nor Slashdot make an appearance, and yet here you are...)
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Another geek who doesn't understand the Bible. I'm not a believer myself, but at least I understand what the New Testament wants to say.
why don't we just stop putting money into the arts too? according to you, we can't afford such frivolous things such as curiosity and expression and searching for meaning.
If there is no evolution, then there is no chance that life would exist anywhere else in the universe because it would have had to have been Created only here
That makes no sense. The basis of most religions is that their god is omnipotent and ominescent, so why can't they have created multiple intelligent lifeforms. For that matter, the power of the god can explain evolution, too (how could such a finely balanced lattice have occured without something guiding it's creation)
The New Testament of the Bible (in which most Creationists readily and eagerly believe) repeatedly claims that there is only one Son of God and that only through Him is salvation possible.
He was human incarnate, not human. Why couldn't he have been "Ugly bug-eyed monster from Proxima Centauri incarnate" or "Betazed incarnate"?
You can be absolutely certain that if intelligent life were discovered tomorrow, on Earth or anywhere else the scriptures of most of the major religions would prove flexible enough to accomodate it.
And to bring this back on topic, it's good to see the funding, but I wonder is it because SETI is starting to get data that interests NASA for some reason (like the readings from Proxima Centauri mentioned in another post).
Rational thought is the only true freedom
> Its about time that SETI got some serious funding, its mainly been kept going by enthusiastic amateurs over the last few years and at one point in the early 80s it actually looked like it was going to close
Hey, I'm all for the SETI thing (did over 7500 units on SETI@home myself), but I don't think using our tax dollars searching for aliens in a time when we've got the largest national debt in history makes alot of sense. Yeah, it might be cool to discover life elsewhere, but ya need to prioritize. One last point...the money that NASA spends (like most other govt. agencies) is hughly inefficient compared to that of private industry.
Just another day in Paradise
I didn't know NASA had enough money to donate, with all the cutbacks and whatnot.
Sounds more like outsourcing facilities to more competent business?
fucktard is a tenderhearted description
Well the strange thing about funding is that it isn't necessarily like all the money that an agency has can be used how it wants to use it. NASA for example might be short of funds for space exploration but have an excess of cash to be appropriated for certain kinds of research, and no matter how NASA might wish to appropriate the fund.
Logic, macros, and more
However, many theological writers have pointed out that the belief in multiple inhabited worlds is history-neutral as well as evolution-neutral. Terry Pratchett often makes this point in humorous ways: in one of his books parts of a continent are created 30000 years old two weeks ago, and in another he mentions the Creator installing perfectly faked fossils to fool future investigators.
To avoid misunderstandings, I'm an agnostic who thinks that the difference between Creationists and the Taliban is largely about what the law allows and geographical location, but I am aware that, just as there can be no proof of the existence of a universal God, there can equally be no proof of the scientific view of the history of the universe.
And if we find something with SETI and start sending them messages, better hope they have a reasonably liberal anti-spam policy.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
If you look at budget summaries for 2003 compared to the proposed 2004 budget (or maybe its 2002 and proposed 2003) the funding for NASA increased a good percentage (10% if i remember correctly).
Isn't it time for Slashdot to partner with NYT just like Google did (link-wise)? After all, Slashdot is a rather large referrer to NYT articles.
Yeah, it might be cool to discover life elsewhere, but ya need to prioritize.
Personally, I feel you're the one who needs to prioritize - putting the national debt ahead of finding intelligent life?
There was a headlining story on the NYT yesterday:
Gen. Tommy R. Franks said today that violence and uncertainty in Iraq made it unlikely that troop levels would be reduced "for the foreseeable future," and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld nearly doubled the estimated military costs there to $3.9 billion a month.
My math might be worse than Dubya's, but I figure it at about $130 million A DAY.
While it's great that we're "funding" SETI, perhaps some of the money we're pouring into Iraq would be better spent on science. Mars, anyone? Zubrin's plan calls for $30 billion for a long term program, just over 7 months worth of war. Which would you prefer, nonexistant WMDs or a manned landing on the Red Planet?
while (!sleep){
sheep++;
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I doubt that the government is thinking, "Oh lets ride on SETI's coattails." More likely the government someone figured, hey, they actually seem to be getting somewhere, we can toss them a few coin and see what they come up with.
I know, its much to easy to think bad things of the government, but try to think objectively.
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
I think that SETI is a worthwhile endeavor, but you know, one has to wonder that if my doing the seti@home thing that eventually they will run out of units for folks to process and start pawning other NASA projects off to our PC's to crunch numbers beause undoubtedly they'll have so much stuff to do that they won't be able to get it done with the cutbacks in other areas.
- Evolution
- Genetics
- Biology
- Geology
- Astronomy
- Physics
As you move down in the list, it is more likely that the creationist will object to a smaller portion of the scientific field. To think like the creationist, it is sufficient to merely apply the following litmus test to science:The otherwise clause in this simpleton logic is especially telling: for the creationists, even those purporting to be creation scientists, create no science, do no experiments, and make no judgements in the scientific field except when required to attempt to discredit those portions that undermine their religious doctrine.
Really, it's as simple as that. Any other answer you get will be self-deception on the part of the creationist.
XML causes global warming.
I'm always disappointed when people quote the Bible trying to disprove science. There are 2 things to remember here...
1. The Bible is a blueprint. Very few theological scholars believe the Bible should be taken as an account of history. What we were given wasn't a reference manual, it was a lesson book. In my view (as off-base as it may be) reading the Bible to get an account of what happend a couple thousand years ago is missing the point and somewhat cheapening the meaning of the book.
2. God was speaking to scientifically primitive people. If he mentioned aliens on other planets how would they take it? How would they write it? They didn't even have the words in their vocabulary. God just described the book, it was up to people with no knowledge of space, biology, evolution, etc. to write it. God chose his words carefully like any good parent. He didn't tell us everything (or there would be no science) but he told us what we needed to hear.
Any anyone who reads this and exclaims "He's calling God a liar!" is REALLY missing the point.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
I disagree that interest levels should be a determinant of funding levels. One of the things that, IMO, the goverment must do is fund activities that are worthy endeavors regardless of the public interest in them or their potential profitability. If it were profitable to search for intelligent life, there would be an entire sector of our economy making (and spending) money to perform the search, and SETI would long ago have had all the money it needed to perform that search, and several other organizations would have cropped up to compete with them. This argument also applies to, say, prescription drugs for the elderly, indigent, and unemployed: it seems to me to be pretty clear that just because a pharmecutical company can't make a billion extra dollars a year in profit that they should be able to deny prescription drugs to people who must have them to survive (or, live a reasonably comfortable life). Since a profit-making organization is unwilling to perform that action, then either a not-for-profit, or the government, must step in and perform it. I am not seeing much in the way of the not-for-profit help, which leaves only the government.
I am not convinced that the bureaucracy that we have in America is the best tool for that job, but it sure seems like it is, presently, the only tool.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
I would prefer $3.9 billion a month went to c) the domestic front in healthcare for the poor and elderly, education, and social programs.
But it's clearly not. Any casual reader (or Biblical scholar) can see this. The Bible is a collection of 66 books written over a 1500 year span by more than 40 authors on three continents (Asia, Africa, Europe) in three different languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek). As a result of the diversity in which the books were composed, the Bible includes various kinds of literature: poetry, historical narrative, song, romance, didactic treatise, personal correspondence, memoirs, satire, biography, autobiography, law, prophecy, parable, and allegory. Parables are just one kind.
The idea that the Bible, which has undergone more revisions then Enron's accounting books, is still 100% accurate from the words of the original authors of the scripture is hardly possible.
There is more manuscript evidence to vouch for the integrity of the Bible, particularly the New Testament, than any other ancient writing. We're talking tens of thousands of documents. And there are no significant differences between the texts.
You imply that the accuracy of the Biblical text in our languages is becoming less genuine over time, but reality shows the exact opposite. The reason? Biblical archaeology. We have discovered more things about Biblical events and cultures in the last few decades than in the previous several hundreds of years.
Translation is a complicated thing. First of all, you must realize that there are major differences between modern Hebrew and Biblical Hebrew. Secondly, it is not sufficient to know Biblical Hebrew and English in order to translate Biblical manuscripts into English. Scholars who translate these things have a vast knowledge of languages, such as Persian, Arabic, Ugaritic, Aramaic, etc., some of which are extinct.
The New Testament is particularly tricky, because although it is in Greek, it frequently uses Hebrew idioms. The KJV is a literal translation, which guarantees that the resulting English text is confusing and wrong. Maybe "wrong" is too strong a word (with regard to its literalness; it is wrong because of other matters of ignorance); the problem is that we, the readers, don't have the knowledge and experience of first century Jews to interpret it correctly. You see, having an understanding of Hebrew thought patterns and idioms is a prerequisite for understanding NT Greek. This entails understanding first century Hebrew culture under the influence of the reigning Roman Empire as well as the Aramaic language, which was predominant among the Jews at that time.
The field of Biblical archaeology is exploding, especially since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1950s, which revealed the oldest known manuscripts of many Old Testament passages in the world. We are uncovering new facts all the time that aid in translating and interpreting the Bible. This has led to an explosion of new Bible versions in the last few decades.
Our understanding and translation of Biblical text is not becoming less accurate; it is becoming more accurate!