Challenge for SETI - Ben Zuckerman (SETI Talks)

SETI Talks Archive: http://seti.org/talks

The union of space telescopes and interstellar spaceships guarantees that if technological extraterrestrial civilizations were nearby or common, then someone would have come here long ago. Dr. Ben Zuckerman will discuss how construction of telescopes such as NASA's proposed Terrestrial Planet Finder enormously strengthens the force of arguments against the existence of nearby intelligent civilizations.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• seti astrobiology
• ben zuckerman
• ucla

[acaticlopez]

seti sucks, why look, for them, they are already here, everywhere, on every planet, every moon, specially the moon and mars, lol, seti is just a diversion, i guess

[setiinstitute]

@acaticlopez Do you have any hard evidence for those claims? :-)

[acaticlopez]

nope not me, but nasa does, and if you analyze it's photos, and videos, and audio communications, it's there, it's common knowledge, remember fifty or more percent of america believes in ufo and ets, and there are many in the know that are willing to testify before congress, you know this, besides let's be honest, with a controlled media you can't do much so the only way to to do this, to open this pandora box, is that somebody, from the public makes contact and show to the world,

[setiinstitute]

@acaticlopez We suggest you take a look at the book 'Confessions of an Alien Hunter' by Seth Shostak. It's less than $20 at Amazon and reveals alot of information about SETI and the NASA program. It's a great read!

[Zurround100]

SETI seems to be defining "intelligence" as the ability to send messages over interstellar distances via radio waves. On OUR world that would exclude all species except for one and even then only in the past several decades. They need to consider that almost all forms of life are NOT able to send radio messages, that does NOT mean that they are not INTERESTING. Were the native americans not interesting? Are plants and animals not interesting? They could not send radio signals either.

[the1casanova]

Yes Mr. Zuckerman is making some assumptions based on what he knows about humankind. That's OK, one point of these talks is to hear lots of different view points and ideas for how SETI should proceed moving forward. Their should be a variety of ideas and most, if not all, should be different than what SETI is doing now. SETI has not found anything in 50 yrs, it's time to try some new strategies.

[Zurround100]

I am sick of astrobiologists assuming a planet has to be earthlike to have life, just because OUR world is that way. No reason life could not evolve totally differently elsewhere.

[davidewetube]

Mr. Zuckerman admits at the end that we have no idea what ETs might look like, but he seems to have no problem making assumptions about how they might act. He frequently anthropomorphizes the ETs to make cases for his arguments (giving them individuality, curiosity, a thirst for adventure and so on.)

[TripleX2go]

@aryah47 Then its the illuminati or You work there right?