Excluding Intelligent Design Principles From the Search For Alien Life

KIdPanda writes "Prompted by pictures of man-made structures in the Utah desert, a SETI astronomer explains the sometimes-ambiguous difference between seeing the hand of God, alien intelligence, or nature. 'In my photographs, Shostak's SETI-trained eye — standing in for a pattern-crunching computer program — searched for an unexpected increase in visual order (or, in thermodynamic terms, a decrease in entropy caused by the rebellion of life against universal decay). A road or a tended field is mathematically simpler than a mountainous jumble or naturally varied vegetation. ... But there's an obvious problem: nothing is simpler than a sweep of blue sky, or the inky blackness of space. If simplicity is the benchmark, space itself is evidence of design."

Comments

oops

[girlintraining]

They assume intelligent life on other worlds would be trying to reduce chaos. I wonder how they arrive at this conclusion, since the only known intelligent life we've found so far seems to rather enjoy creating it in great quantity.

Re:oops

[Zwicky]

Surely she means the mice. Dolphins aren't all that, they just think they are.

Re:Yeah...except not

[Anonymous Coward]

"If simplicity is the benchmark, space itself is in no way evidence of design."

So by this benchmark Windows Vista shows no evidence of design?

Re:What?

[elronxenu]

Neither did the article.

Re:I think you're overthinking this

[ceoyoyo]

I thought it was prime numbers and a Hitler speech.

Re:Yeah...except not

[lilomar]

He was talking about intellegent design.

Re:I think you're overthinking this

[MillionthMonkey]

It was a prime number of Hitlers.

Intelligent design, my ass.

[EWAdams]

One word: cancer.

The human body is clear proof that God is an idiot.