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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."
With all due respect, the question of origins is a philosophical one rather than a scientific one. It is not possible to use the scientific method to determine origins.
The creationist and the evolutionist are in the same boat. Neither can observe, record, repeat the process
This is pure, unadulterated bullshit. While it's true that we can't replicate the origin of the Universe, or life itself, the scientific method is perfectly applicable to these questions. You formulate an hypothesis, then observe the evidence to disprove or confirm said hypothesis. The repetition comes in finding different kinds of evidence in different places. You can predict something would be found based on an hypothesis, then look at the evidence and see if it doesn't fit. If what you were saying is true, the entire science of astronomy is pure guesswork without the slightest rational basis. Please.
Both are constrained to collect extant data and propose theories about what caused the universe. In that respect, they are limited to speculation.
You sound like an ID proponent. This conclusion is absurd, and results from intellectual laziness. If you think creationism has anything to do with evidence, you're either ignorant or a liar. Creationist "institutes" openly declare that they *already know the answer*, and that the only acceptable "evidence" is that which supports their predetermined answer, ignoring or distorting all else. It is *not* science.
What you refer to as "evolutionists" really means "everyone except the creationists." To say their goals or methods are more than superficially similar is ridiculous.
Speculation is unlikely to provide an answer. On this idea, CS Lewis said: "It's like expecting that the accidental shape taken by a splash when you upset a milk jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset."
I remember when I though CS Lewis was deep. Actually, he is to philosophy what Chutes and Ladders is to games of skill. His works are a study in poorly constructed arguments, guided by the desire to shore up a preconceived idea rather than seek truth.
For that matter, it is not possible for scientists to say with certainty how the universe was prior to its existence. This is not science, but speculation and should be named as such.
Asking how something was before it existed is gibberish. But, assuming for the sake of argument, that your statement makes sense, science doesn't say *anything* with absolute certainty. It narrows down the possibilities, and can give us knowledge to a very high degree of confidence (as one famous scientist put it, some things are not known absolutely, but are known with sufficient basis that it would be perverse to withold provisional assent - Like "the Earth is roughly spherical."), but all scientific knowledge is potentially subject to revision. Some things are very hard to overturn because they've been demonstrated from so many directions one would need to dismantle just about everything we know to do so. Gravity is one of these things, and so is evolution.
I have a strong suspicion you're a creationism proponent, since this has become a standard creationist tactic: It's all the same, creationism and evolution are equally valid because it's all just guesswork, yadda yadda. Feigning neutrality is pretty standard.
Then again, you might just not know what you're talking about, in which case I apologize for calling you a creationist, but suggest you need to put your ideas back in the oven and let them bake a little longer.
This is the kind of thing that pisses me off. Personally I think our Government spend faaaaaar too much money as it is, and then this story comes along. I'm all for SETI and stuff, but I don't think this is a totally worthwhile use of my tax dollars.
Pork spending. I'm sure someone at NASA has a brother in law that works for SETI or something similar and that's how the funding got there. I seriously doubt it was because of evidence or anything solid and concrete.
I mean, we have enough problems that the Federal Government is involved with already...and now they're going to throw more money at a cause best funded by private dollars? Insane. While I think NASA is a worthy objective (atleast partly, it should be privitized)...I don't want Federal Money going to support something like SETI.
The reason they cut the funding off in the first place is that it is frivolous. Like grant money given to artists and crap like that. Let's see Government give another big across the board tax cut..raise revenue back a little and stop funding all these silly programs that are clearly private groups and shouldn't receive Federal Dollars.
Let's secure our boarders and get better education in our schools and fix our roads and things of that nature before we start spending Tax Dollars hailing Alpha Centuari.
Only you can stop the stupid Represenatives and Senators wasting our money. End pork spending.
--Reverend Raven
Desperate days demand dire deeds.
I think it's probably humanity's worst idea since the atomic bomb.
Here is what SETI is: We are broadcasting a signal all over space, shouting to whoever might be out there, "over here is a livable planet, rich in natural resources and populated by a primitive indigenous species which can barely manage to send you a radio signal. Please come conquer us. We might even taste good!"
Given the near-universal nature of all evolved life to compete for survival and prosperity, while valuing other species less than its own, if there is nobody out there to hear the signal, I would call that a best-case scenario.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.