SETI Is 50 Years Old; No Sign of ET

EagleHasLanded writes "The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence is 50 years old next month, and still no sign of intelligent alien life. Paul Davies of the Beyond Center (also Chairman of the SETI Post-Detection Taskgroup) says it's time to re-think and expand the search for ET."

Comments

Patience!

[Foobar of Borg]

We are trying to find signs of intelligent life off the Earth. Give it some time, people. And try to become civilized yourselves.

They are there invisibly

[headkase]

As we ourselves transition to all digital-communications and the associated low-transmission-power-levels we will fall off the radar for other civilizations detecting us too. That little blip of 100 years of analog full-blast will not been seen by anyone else either. This is in addition to the numbers associated with space: it is big, fricken' big and long in time. The last civilization anywhere near enough to us to be detected probably went extinct around 100 million years ago and in another 2 million years until humanity goes extinct the next civilization close enough to pick us up probably won't develop technology for another 60 million years... Missed in the night. But imagine in your mind an alien on an alien world because those same numbers say that it is a logical certainty that they exist.

Re:After 50 years?

[ilguido]

People need to study orders of magnitude [youtube.com] before they get on SETI's case about not finding anything exciting.

Better not: they'd know that SETI is useless and a waste of money.

I think expectations are too high...

[rotide]

I see lots of posts that seem to miss the point. The mere _finding_ of an ET would be _dramatic_ for our civilization. Think of all the things that would change (not all religious).

If we can ever _prove_ we're not alone out here, I honestly believe it could sway the attitudes and priorities of many governments. I mean, honestly, if we know there is another alien life out there, that we could potentially communicate with, how many stupid squabbles would end?

Right now, we only worry about ourselves because, well, that's all there is to worry about. The prospect of learning from another civilization, or even just being afraid and try to "defend" ourselves from them (sad, but you never know what spin governments would put on a finding like that) could be utterly revolutionary.

Then again, so many people would dis-believe due to religious and/or conspiratorial reasons would probably be mind boggling.

Re:I think expectations are too high...

[0xdeadbeef]

even just being afraid and try to "defend" ourselves from them (sad, but you never know what spin governments would put on a finding like that)

Government spin? That's the primary purpose for which we should be looking.

Where does this idea of the peaceful alien come from? There has never been mutual cooperation between civilizations or species competing for the same resources. Among civilizations, it has always resulted in destruction or subjugation of the less technologically advanced civilization. We need to be keeping our ears open and our mouths shut.

Re:I think expectations are too high...

[vadim_t]

Where does this idea of the peaceful alien come from? There has never been mutual cooperation between civilizations or species competing for the same resources. Among civilizations, it has always
resulted in destruction or subjugation of the less technologically advanced civilization. We need to be keeping our ears open and our mouths shut.

I think that if anything can show up here and say hi they probably don't need anything from us. Unless they come from Proxima Centauri they can probably find whatever they need much closer, and sending anything from here back wherever they came from is probably mind boggingly expensive in energy expenditures.

For instance take the lack of interest in mining asteroids or the moon. We probably could if we had a good reason to, but it's so expensive it's not worth it.

Re:Fermi Paradox anyone??

[cyn1c77]

You miss the point of the Fermi Paradox entirely. Given that humans have only been in existence on earth for 200K Years, why is it that no aliens have colonised Earth *before* we got here? It would take only one expansionist alien culture to exist in the billions of years the galaxy has existed before us and the Earth and the entire galaxy would have been well and truely colonized already.

I mean some relatively straight-forward extrapolations of humans shows *us* colonizing the galaxy in a few million years.

Basically the Fermi paradox says, they are *no* other intelligent civilizations in the galaxy otherwise we would have had dramatic evidence on Earth.

Still I see no particular harm in continuing to look. If something were found it would be a monumental breakthrough.

Even more importantly, why does everyone think Fermi's paradox is well posed?

There's also a really simple explanation: The astronomical distances separating Earth from other stars require astronomical amounts of energy and/or astronomical amounts of time cross. Maybe accessing this amount of energy and time is just too improbable for any civilization. We could play some games with the Drake equation and "prove" this, but we'd be extrapolating into bullshit-land. Of course, that is where the current Drake equation parameters are anyway.

But even if this barrier could be crossed, consider advanced aliens that develop the means access such a large amount of energy and to travel such great distances. Let's say that life is so common that they are able to come across millions of other life forms. Chances are, those life forms will be much more primitive than they are. After you have "discovered" a few million primitive life forms are you really going to visit them all? Or would you rather use your time more efficiently, and ignore the life forms that are much less primitive that you and only visit the ones that are near or above your level of sophistication? When was the last time you talked to the ants in your backyard on the way to hang out with your girlfriend?

I am guessing that even advanced aliens don't have infinite time and energy at their tentacle tips. They're not going to waste their time with us. We can barely get to low earth orbit on a good day.