h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Rock on TG!!

Jules xx

well, you asked for it, so here goes...

"The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) programme is a secular religion (organized system of ideas and practices for people who are interested in finding their place in the universe; entymilogically, the word 'religion' from the latin root 'ligio', from which we also get 'ligament', means 'reconnection') founded by Carl Sagan."

a lot of people would dispute the way you are saying this in a ridiculing manner, especially as a lot of us don't see it as a religion, only as an interesting experiment.

"Practically speaking, the SETI program uses a network of radio observatories to search the skies for transmissions that might have been made by other sentient races, and to beam series of prime numbers into space as a big neon 'HERE WE ARE' sign for any other races that might be listening. It has been noted elsewhere that we earthlings are either alone in the universe, or not, and that either implication is of monumental significance."

ok so far.

"Supporters and advocates of the SETI program contend that we are probably not alone in the universe given the fact that billions of systems similar to the one that produced us are floating around in the sky above us. Not a wholly unreasonable assumption."

I can agree with that.

"They also contend that such life forms might possibly be sentient, might possibly be civilized, might possibly have undergone something analagous to an enlightenment and industrial revolution, and therefore might possibly be technologically advanced and might possibly have invented radios in the process of becoming technologically advanced"

ok so far, but you then go on to add " without immediately nuking themselves afterwards or despoiling their planet's ecosystem by driving gas-guzzling SUVs down to the local mall to buy batteries at Radio Shack." which realy doesn't help.

"It is contended that such a life form may have managed to reach this point at just about exactly the same time (relativistically) that it was accomplished on our planet, regardless of the fact that our own planet has spent the majority of its history as an advanced ecosystem as the stomping ground of giant lizards with brains the size of walnuts, and at any rate it is contended that it might just be possible for us to have a listen and figure out if any of this is actually the case."

a valid point, but probably the least helpfull way of saying it that I have ever heard.

"A fair amount of money and directed effort gets spent on this well-intentioned undertaking, and it would seem cynical to point out to a nice, humanistic stargazer that even sentience on our own planet is somewhat in question, and seems to be something of an evolutionary fluke in any event."

again you are veering wildly towards the dismissive, not helping you to make your points.

"It has been pointed out that, given that any astronomical undertaking has to take relativistic effects into account, and given that humans have only had radio observatories listening and crunching numbers for the past thirty years or so, that SETI is really assuming quite a lot in supposing that in a universe of 30 billion light years in diameter, our meagre listening range of less than 60 light years in diameter has a hope in hell of turning up any viable results."

fine again, but you can't count. if you are listening for 30 years, you only have 30 light years for listening, and fifteen to get any response to any signals you put out right at the beginning.

"In fact, a seagull in high orbit over the earth has a better chance of crapping on an ant on the ground. This brand of luddism tends to be the sort of thing to get ardent SETI advocates really upset."

again back to the dismissive with a strong element of insult thrown in for good measure.

"On the other hand, it would be a dreadful shame if some extra-terrestrial civilization WAS out there waiting to be discovered, and we were too obstinate to pay it any attention. This was the thesis of Carl Sagan's book Contact, and the alien civilization in his book was represented as wise and kind and mysterious and powerful, which is assuming a lot if human history is any indication. Some have pointed out the ironic possibilities of inviting contact with a species that might be even remotely as warlike as we ourselves tend to be. More luddism."

again with the insults (although vailed this time). the assumption that they are more enlightened is based upon the idea that if they were not, they would have blasted themselves back to the stone age, like we are trying to do at the moment.

"An earlier endeavour by Carl Sagan had to do with one of the Voyager probes, and it involved sending a vinyl recording of the word 'hello' spoken in 70 terran languages along with the probe, just in case some alien cryptographers equipped with 70 rpm record players and an english/bzorkian dictionary should happen to be orbiting jupiter at the time that Voyager was scheduled for a flyby. This just goes to demonstrate that even relatively smart people can do abominably stupid things if they want badly enough to believe in something."

again highly dismissive, and while it is not necessarily the brightest idea, the aim was to include something on the first probe we produced which would leave our system. also, they did not make the mistake of making it a vinyl disk, it was made of metal. also it didn't make a significant difference not including it so why not. however this is not realy relevent to seti.

"It seems the SETI programme is a mostly harmless and worthwhile endeavour, and if nothing else it demonstrates to the world that even secular humanists have dreams, hopes, and a need to seek meaning in the larger framework of the cosmos."

So why are you so keen to knock it?

"True, the odd naysayer might point out that it is somewhat ludicrous to be turning our faces to the vastness of the heavens in a search for meaning when at this point in our history we have so many miserable starving beings right here on Earth who would profit much more by our attention than any alien civilization might hope to."

fine, but it isn't an either or proposition. the funding for seti is negligable as regards the difference you could make if you put it into the aid budget.

"Perhaps the home computers crunching numbers for SETI right now could be crunching numbers for medical research, for example. Then again, very few feats of notable daring would grace human history if the cynics always had their way."

this is why there are now quite a few grid computing applications out there, some of which are for medical related projects, but without the unusual data procesing requirements of the seti project, we would still be waiting for grid computing.

"There are even reasonable ways of justifying the SETI endeavour to those concerned about the plight of mankind;"

again, why are you so aginst it then?

"Sagan, for example, seemed to have the notion that discovery of other civilizations might abate much of the need for conflict here on Earth, a view shared by Ronald Reagan, though Reagan seemed more interested in the notion of waging war on any potential aliens than in having a chat with them."

not really an option. we don't have the technology to wage interplanetary war, and don't look like having it for a number of decades.

"Jimmy Carter, on the other hand, thinks he was abducted by aliens."

this has already been picked up in an earlier post as being blatantly wrong.

"You might encounter the odd fellow, like Jimmy Carter, who insists that, not only does life exist on other planets, but in fact a spacefaring sentient race of eugenic interventionists is involved in guiding humanity's evolution as a species, and that people all over the world are being abducted and having things inserted into their nether orifices, and that spaceships are crashing into earth on a semi regular basis, and that earth's governments are involved in covering all this information up to prevent mass panic."

yes, you can find nuts anywhere.

"Such people generally have very little to do with SETI, and most ardent SETI supporters don't invite or appreciate any comparison."

so why bother to mention it then?

"If we are truly interested in finding life on other planets, perhaps a good start would be to locate some other planets for that life to be on. We are doing that now."

well said.

"Since the Hubble telescope was put in orbit several years ago, astronomers have at last been able to find real, concrete evidence that there are planets orbiting other stars; several hundred extrasolar systems have been catalogued so far, and more are found all the time."

again, well said.

"Interestingly, the majority of extrasolar systems found to date seem to be binary stars, although this data could be misleading; it may be simply that the measurements of erratic movement used to locate extrasolar systems work better on binary star systems. That being the case, not one planet in any of the extrasolar systems observed to date is thought capable of supporting a complex biosphere like ours;"

This is due to the current detection methods, which are being improved every day.

"humanity, for the very first time ever, is getting a glimpse founded on concrete, scientific data of just how rare and exceptional our kind of planet is."

no we are not. we are getting a glimpse that a lot of the planetary systems found so far are incompatable, but they are a miniscule fraction of a percent of the stars that could heve planets, so it doesn't really impact the drake equation at all.

"We are probably not alone in the universe, which is, after all, a staggeringly big place; but we are also probably very very very unlikely to chance upon finding someone else like us in a place this staggeringly big."

surely that is prejudging the question that seti sets out to answer, and is thus unhelpfull.

"And if we are alone, then what?"

a valid question.

"I suppose it really puts the onus on us to not blow ourselves up or bleed ourselves dry, doesn't it? If we do screw it up and manage to drive ourselves to extinction, it's not likely that anyone will be visiting our graveside with flowers, so to speak. A sobering thought."

could be framed better, but valid from some viewpoints.

"Then again, maybe Carter is right. Maybe those Heaven's Gate nuts were right. Maybe even SETI advocates are right."

in other words, you don't have a clue who's right, do you?

"I suppose we'll see. Or not."

that is the attitude of seti enthusiasts as well, but they view looking to see what we can find out as being more usefull than just sitting with out thumbs in the orifice of our choice sniping at others who don't.

very nicely restrained, Xyroth.

*agrees*

well, they did ask what was wrong with it.

So what's happening with this one? Any plans to revise, and try to make it somewhat more balanced?

Hi Xyroth,

I had to print your entry so i could give it the attention it deserves ........ i was not only interested as a supporter of the programme but because i am open to other people's views and you can always learn something. I found this entry interestingly informative and soooo amusing ......... i love your sense of humour!!

Many of your views were so valid i found myself questioning what i felt was right in the first place .......... so now i think i'm more confused than i was to start with.

How pleased i am that someone with such a charming turn of phrase has put forward the challenge!!

I look forward to reading other works of art on subjects you may also challenge me on .......... thanks.

Jules xx

So, here you are! After responding so strongly to my discussion of this piece (at the bottom of, in the discuss this entry area), I wasn't sure where to leave the response. So, for your convenience, I will place it here, as well.

**************************************************

Ah, so your first message meant that you found my beginning of a thread on the discuss-this-entry page and felt that I should scour the site for your missive before responding to the piece?

Let us set aside the fact that you misinterpreted my perhaps strained humour. I agree that the article is biased and dismissive in many spots. I don't find that unusual on a self-serve website. The piece may never get to edited status, and I'm not suggesting that it should, but the author is entitled to his own set of filters.

I understand your complaints (thanks for the link, btw), and agree with much of it. However, one has to wonder if you would have been as thorough in your criticism if he had been just as biased and dismissive in the other direction?

You obviously can't complain of bias in one direction and applaud it in the opposite direction. Not and be taken as seriously objective anyway.

One last thing; you may still want to get that dictionary. I believe that when you wrote:
"again with the insults (although vailed this time)"
that you meant 'veiled', as vailed means to doff one's hat. Something furthest from your mind, I am certain.

covering some of your points in detail...

"I understand your complaints (thanks for the link, btw), and agree with much of it. However, one has to wonder if you would have been as thorough in your criticism if he had been just as biased and dismissive in the other direction?" ... yes I would, and often have. that is what peer review is for, to get entries which the author thought were finished into an unbiased state.

in particular, he wanted this entry to balance the existing edited entry on seti. As such, it has to be much mre negative about it than would usually get through peer review.

"but the author is entitled to his own set of filters"... so he is, but when he tries to get something into peer review he must be flexible enough in his views to get it past the peer review process, and address the criticism he receives.

however the whole debate might be academic, as the author appears to have left the building. can one of the scouts pop over and verify that, and then do the honours re the flea market.

He won't officially hit the 2 month mark until next week.

And as this is an author who is known for disappearing for months at a time and then reappearing and re-engaging in PR again, I (personally) would prefer a move back to the entry than to the FM, as I would consider him more "out for a donut" than "left the building".

If other scouts are really wanting to see this one moved to the FM, I would be willing to relent, but I (for one) would rather see the FM reserved for those entries whose authors are truly unlikely to return. The people who leave for 3-4 months and then come back are, often as not, some of the same people who tend towards the angry side when they see someone has drastically altered their entry, submitted it to PR, and gotten it into the EG.

worth of a

that is one of the reasons I asked someone to go and check.

considering he makes statements that sound like they come from a university campus, I thought he might be on summer holidays.

On the whole, I rather liked it, although I'd join in the disquiet about terming SETI a religion, despite the behaviour of some of its "believers".

A couple of the more prominent critics of SETI, who might be worth a mention are:

Anthropologist Jared Diamond; based on our documented treatment of bith other species and subsets of our own, he has stated that the rational response to potential extraterrestrial intelligence is for us to shut up now.

Physicist ?John? Dewdney (Author of "The Planiverse" a book describing a two dimensional world - possibly worth an entry by itself) By plugging different yet plausible numbers into the famous Drake equation he demonstrated that it is quite possible that the number of potentially contactable civilisations in the Universe right now is 1 - "That would be us then."

I rather liked the story about the two monkey tribes. Where was that third, female tribe in all that?

Given the math, I don't imagine that we have any right to expect immediate results. But, if there is anyone to contact (likely believed by more non-religious than religious), or was, or will be, anyone to contact, one of us would have to start trying sometime.

If we broadcast for 100 years (or better 1,000 years), and do not hear back, perhaps a statistical argument can be made for abandoning the SETI effort. Still, considering that we have had radio capability for about 100 years, and radio telescopes for less than 50, I would think that a 10,000 year project would not be too short.

Considering the age of the universe (and how much further it has to go), A one-million year project, that failed to produce results, would still represent about a .005% confidence level. I just hope we get lucky sooner.

Right on the second point (reponses only from less than 15 light years away) but length of listening time has nothing to do with range. If I listen fro 30 years the signal I receive noe was 30 light years away. This isn't neccesarily where it started and it may have been travelling much longer and much further. Maybe even 15 billion (light) years.

I apologize if this as already been brought up but do you know about setiathome.com
you can take part in the search by downloading their program which runs as a screen saver. The program downloads block of information (radio telescope data) and performs a search then reports the results.

There's a whole Edited Guide entry already, just about the SETI@home project -- see A649893. The entry this PR thread is about was written partially in response to the A649893 entry.

Your Guide Entry has just been picked from Peer Review by one of our Scouts, and is now heading off into the Editorial Process, which ends with publication in the Edited Guide. We've therefore moved this Review Conversation out of Peer Review and to the entry itself.

If you'd like to know what happens now, check out the page on 'What Happens after your Entry has been Recommended?' at EditedGuide-Process. We hope this explains everything.

Thanks for contributing to the Edited Guide!