Comments on: Carl Sagan on SETI

By: Friendship Quotes

Friendship Quotes — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 11:46:09 +0000

Carl Sagan on SETI | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine great ideas for this world!

By: Is SETI worth it? « Lost in Science

Is SETI worth it? « Lost in Science — Thu, 12 May 2011 03:37:03 +0000

[...] to put it simply, you’ve got to be in it to win it. As described excellently by Carl Sagan, it would be a shame if someone sent us a message and we weren’t [...]

By: Gary Ansorge

Gary Ansorge — Mon, 02 May 2011 21:20:56 +0000

9. Lewis

,,,or Sun Diver by David Brin,,,

I read an article several years ago in which the researcher(dang! can’t recall his name) had created plasmas that were both self sustaining and self replicating. Don’t remember the details.

A blog commenter remarked that possibly the real reason we haven’t heard anything with SETI is that everyone is transmitting in compressed, digital code. To SETIs instruments, he suggested, it would look like noise.

That seems too easy an explanation for me but maybe he’s right.

Gary 7

By: Dark Jaguar

Dark Jaguar — Mon, 02 May 2011 00:20:28 +0000

My biggest issue with SETI is if they are even capable of detecting any of those signals even if they are out there. How weak would those radio signals be after travelling the distances involved and how sensitive are their antennas?

By: Matthew Saunders

Matthew Saunders — Sun, 01 May 2011 21:04:35 +0000

“People need a sacred narrative. They must have a sense of larger purpose, in one form or another, however intellectualized. They will find a way to keep ancestral spirits alive.”

–E. O. Wilson

Simply beautiful video, Carl, who thought that religion was an essential meat, is able to capture and transmit awe and wonder so well.

By: SLC

SLC — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 09:38:01 +0000

In the previous thread, I mentioned that the late biologist Ernst Mayr had opined that intelligent life would probably be very rare in the universe. This was part of a debate on the subject between him and Carl Sagan. Needless to say, Dr. Sagan was rather more optimistic on the subject then was Dr. Mayr.

http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/search_for_life/seti/seti_debate.html

By: Troy

Troy — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 08:58:45 +0000

I have mixed feelings about SETI. Articles about it have never really excited me that much. I do think they should continue it because anything detected would have such overwhelming significance. It is also relatively cheap and there are spin offs in improving scanning algorithms and the like. In addition, it spawned the concept of networked computers on the Internet used as a huge supercomputer as a screen-saver.

By: frankenstein monster

frankenstein monster — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 23:22:47 +0000

Silence in the stars may just be evidence that our kind of intelligence isn’t really viable.

And what kind of intelligence would there be else ? Any intelligent being would learn
about the world around it works. an then start to use things in its environment to further its goals. Because that is, what is intelligence for.
And that means technology.
And vice versa. a thing that does not know or care to understand the world around it, can not be considered intelligent.

By: frankenstein monster

frankenstein monster — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 23:14:05 +0000

The scientific thing to do is use Occam’s Razor to choose the simplest explanation for the null observation of any hint of ET: they aren’t there.

simple as in the theory with minimum information-theoretic complexity. not simple as in the most simple-minded answer.

and given our own existence, and the physics and chemistry of the universe, there would be much more negative results needed to make an a priori highly improbable hypothesis “we are an unique exception in the entire lifeless universe” to be the most probable answer.

By: toasterhead

toasterhead — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 18:06:53 +0000

10. Steve Metzler Says:
April 28th, 2011 at 4:32 pm

They haven’t even seen any of our electromagnetic signals yet.
—–
And they won’t, unless we beam some signals directly to them. Our leaking radio and TV waves dissipate into the background radiation after a light year or two. To pick them up from as close as Alpha Centauri, you’d need a radio antenna almost half the size of Neptune: http://www.computing.edu.au/~bvk/astronomy/HET608/essay/

By: Wedge

Wedge — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 10:08:00 +0000

@DLC

Cinderella? I think that is the wrong tale about a not too hot, not too cold soup

By: Matt B.

Matt B. — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 05:14:31 +0000

Linda, I think they come from a TV special that was on a couple years ago that talked about what alien life might be like. I’m pretty sure it was based on a book that came out around the same time, but that’s as good as my memory is on that. I can’t remember who wrote the book.

By: DLC

DLC — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 04:25:56 +0000

I hate the Drake Equation.
That noted, there are enough stars out there that the lowest side estimates for the Drake Equation make it a number very close to unity as a probability.
Given that, the idea of listening for them seems like a good idea. probably anything within say, 200,000 LY. Or more. It’s so hard to tell how quickly life could develop elsewhere.
And you can’t write off planets not in the “cinderella zone” (another thing I hate), either, because life may not be limited to our kind of life. It’s entirely possible that life could develop based on other reactive chemicals.

By: Roundup of Unusual Size: Brathwaite, Barack and Bessel beams « Dire Critic

Roundup of Unusual Size: Brathwaite, Barack and Bessel beams « Dire Critic — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 04:18:39 +0000

[...] coming in one month!” mode, let’s just take a long moment to breeeeathe… and listen to some Carl Sagan, courtesy of Phil Plait at Bad [...]

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 00:19:08 +0000

In my opinion, we have only been searching for such a short time. At this point, I don’t think we have enough information to say whether there are not, for sure, any intelligent alien life forms out there.

With the time frames and distances involved, there’s to much left open to question, in my mind.

By: Steve Metzler

Steve Metzler — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 22:32:44 +0000

4. Larry:

The scientific thing to do is use Occam’s Razor to choose the simplest explanation for the null observation of any hint of ET: they aren’t there.

I’m willing to bet they’re there. It’s just that the distances involved are so immense. Say the nearest intelligence is a mere 500 LY away (and I don’t even know if we’ve discovered any viable exoplanets that close to us yet). They haven’t even seen any of our electromagnetic signals yet. And then it would take another 500 years for us to see their response.

By: Lewis

Lewis — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 20:16:59 +0000

The two-legged creatures are from a documentary by Stephen Hawking
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article7107207.ece
I found the best part of the documentary was the thought of aliens living inside a star. I always thought that was ridiculous until I read Flux by Stephen Baxter – worth a look too.

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 17:52:25 +0000

I miss Carl…

By: Linda

Linda — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 17:32:57 +0000

Does anyone know what those strange creatures are at ~3:15 ?

Nice video! CS really knew how to tell a captivating story

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 16:45:45 +0000

@ ^ BJN : Perhaps we’re only semi-intelligent?

Intelligence has degrees and is relative y’know.

FWIW, I’m in favour of a Lunar return – and much more when it comes to space exploration, human & robotic, private and government, plain & simple.

Lets go out and do these things not just because they’re hard but because we learn and benefit and increase our understanding by doing so.

***

Superluminous clip. Thanks.

I was looking for Sagan videos on youtube & posted a few earlier myself – see :

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/04/28/e-t-call-waiting/#comment-379588

Yet hadn’t seen this one. Love it.

PS. Sorry about the inevitable typos, drunk as & crazy – or is it just the rest of the world?

By: BJN

BJN — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 16:23:53 +0000

I’m not big on new missions to the Moon, but I’ve given money to support SETI.

In our self-centered perspective we all tend to put great stock in our technological prowess, and we presume that “intelligent” life will inevitably be technological. We can only really search for species that are very similar to ourselves and that’s a tremendous handicap. It’s not really surprising that we don’t find ourselves when we look to the stars. We’re very likely a flash in the pan. Our species is causing a great extinction event on this planet and our own survival in any meaningful sense of species longevity is very much in question. Silence in the stars may just be evidence that our kind of intelligence isn’t really viable.

By: Larry

Larry — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 16:20:36 +0000

The second-to-last sentence of Dr. Sagan’s narration, “We are a little lonely…” is key to understanding SETI. As Arik Rice [3] also admits, SETI is really about how we view our place in the Universe. That isn’t science, although it certainly is a search.

The scientific thing to do is use Occam’s Razor to choose the simplest explanation for the null observation of any hint of ET: they aren’t there.

By: Arik Rice

Arik Rice — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 15:37:10 +0000

You know I ‘m one of those people who believes that there likely is no alien intelligence anywhere near us, if at all, but I still support SETI whole-heartledly. Partially, because that is the scientific thing to do (my beliefs are falsifiable since finding aliens would disprove it), but partially because I would rather be wrong in this instance. I would rather there were aliens out there somewhere, and that we find them, than we be completely alone in the entire universe. Unfortunately, it’s just that the best evidence and arguments I can think of currently supports the latter more.

By: kuhnigget

kuhnigget — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 15:04:44 +0000

Yeah, I always thought the best thing about active SETI was the search itself, not the potential discovery…which would probably be twisted and spun and frakked up by the usual bunch of clowns into something meaningless and divisive anyway.

At least the search was a symbol of hope.

By: davidlpf

davidlpf — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 14:36:15 +0000

Damn that man is still wise to this day.