SETI: Science or Pseudoscience?

[rwguinn]

1. psi stuff usually contradicts what we already know about science - for it to be true, some accepted and functioning laws of physics have to be rejected, and new laws have to be introduced

2. when psi was first proposed, testing the claims would certainly have qualified as science, but now that significant counterevidence has accumulated, it's merely a waste of time

Thank you for phrasing it that way--many would say we would have to throw out all we know...

But I have to ask--Why would we have to reject "some accepted and functioning laws of physics "?
Just as we did when Einstein and relativity came along, we add to--not eliminate. So newtonian physics became a limited subset of relativistic physics--But it works just fine within those limits.
AFAIK, we would indeed have to introduce new laws (Theories) to cover the new phenomena, but since what we use now works perfectly well, the new ones would be additions. For example, Newtonian Physics leads one to the result that the summation of forces on a body can be expressed in terms of Mass times Acceleration (F=MA). No problems there. Forces are currently due to acceleration (i.e., gravity, rocket engines, etc), Hooke's law (springs), magnetism, pressure acting on an area, and probably some others which I don't deal with on a daily basis. So if telekenesis exists, we add that force in, and then go about defining the "Laws of Telekenesis"

 

[blutoski]

Thank you for phrasing it that way--many would say we would have to throw out all we know...

But I have to ask--Why would we have to reject "some accepted and functioning laws of physics "?
Just as we did when Einstein and relativity came along, we add to--not eliminate. So newtonian physics became a limited subset of relativistic physics--But it works just fine within those limits.
AFAIK, we would indeed have to introduce new laws (Theories) to cover the new phenomena, but since what we use now works perfectly well, the new ones would be additions. For example, Newtonian Physics leads one to the result that the summation of forces on a body can be expressed in terms of Mass times Acceleration (F=MA). No problems there. Forces are currently due to acceleration (i.e., gravity, rocket engines, etc), Hooke's law (springs), magnetism, pressure acting on an area, and probably some others which I don't deal with on a daily basis. So if telekenesis exists, we add that force in, and then go about defining the "Laws of Telekenesis"

Two established facts that interfere are:

1. claims of instantaneous communication via telepathy, such as to alien races who are very far away. This completely contradicts our model of spacetime.

2. rejecting what we know about cause-effect relationships. There is not a clear connection between intention and action. For example, influencing random numbers generated by a computer. I am unaware of any of the participants explaining what, exactly, in the computer is being altered to achieve this objective.


Regardless, SETI is not jumping the gun and assuming new laws of physics will be discovered that will eventually justify the project: its tenets are completely contained within the existing scientific model.

 

[drkitten]

Seti is science the way ID is science.

We know we send signals into space. And Seti is looking for other intelligence signals.

We know, an organism can be change or design by changing it DNA. ID is looking for other intelligence designs.

This is a misrepresentation of both SETI and ID.

SETI is looking for data. ID is looking (incompetently) for interpretations of data.

If SETI finds something, we may indeed be able to apply some techniques from information theory to try to determine whether there is "intelligence" behind it. So far, the track record of astronomers at distinguishing intelligence from natural phenomena is pretty good -- they correctly identified the LGM signals as natural phenomena, despite their apparently regular and information-laden appearance.

 

[woodguard]

This is a misrepresentation of both SETI and ID.

SETI is looking for data. ID is looking (incompetently) for interpretations of data.

If SETI finds something, we may indeed be able to apply some techniques from information theory to try to determine whether there is "intelligence" behind it. So far, the track record of astronomers at distinguishing intelligence from natural phenomena is pretty good -- they correctly identified the LGM signals as natural phenomena, despite their apparently regular and information-laden appearance.

Seti is looking at data (signals from space) and looking for something too complex to be natural.

ID is also looking at data(DNA and stuff) and looking for something too complex to be natural

SETI and ID are the same type of science. Looking for intelligence in nature.

Any reason you give to show SETI as science, can use to show ID is science too.

The Ideas in this post are not mine, but only of Logical and reason.

 

[rwguinn]

Seti is looking at data (signals from space) and looking for something too complex to be natural.

ID is also looking at data(DNA and stuff) and looking for something too complex to be natural

SETI and ID are the same type of science. Looking for intelligence in nature.

Any reason you give to show SETI as science, can use to show ID is science too.

The Ideas in this post are not mine, but only of Logical and reason.

Nice logic.
"No cat has 9 tails. every cat has one tail more than no cat. Therefore, every cat has 10 tails." (Eric Frank Russel)

 

[Complexity]

SETI is a scientific undertaking.

SETI is all about listening.

Some of you could well follow its example.

 

[scotth]

For those people that have voted Science, how is SETI different from searches for 'psi' stuff, and if it is science, where is the evidence so far?

There might be better posts addressing this question when I get further down the page, but I felt the you deserved a better answer than you got in the first couple. Actually, I see Brian touched on some of this in his response to "What is falsifiable about SETI?".

In the searching, I don't see any difference at all. The real difference is in the attitudes of the people waiting for results. Well that, and what the estimates are of how thoroughly we've investigated each case.

Many in the psi camp seem to believe there is a lot more supporting evidence than there appears to be for it. It seems that people aren't getting good instruction on how to value and weigh evidence. There is a great deal of 'evidence' for psi, but not one bit that couldn't be manufactured that I can see. That seems a terrible coincidence. An even worse coincidence, every time someone tries to replicate the evidence in a transparent and well designed trial, it isn't found.

Not to say there aren't kooks that don't have similarly unsubstantiated beliefs concerning the existance of extraterestrial intelligence, there certainly are. But, that doesn't describe the SETI crowd, at least not in the main. They recognize that if they want know the answer to this difficult question they will have to look for evidence and wait. They are looking and drawing no conclusions yet.

And the size of the problems.... The SETI problem is huge. To be able say that you did a search that was fairly likely to detect any technological civiliation in the cosmic neighborhood would be to: Develop a much more sensitive receiving system than exists today. Then you build enough of those system so that every star within 1000ly or so can be monitored more or less 24/7. Then you let it run 10,000 years continously and see if got anything. If you get nothing after 10,000 years, then you know something. You know, for certain, that at least our little corner of the universe isn't brimming over with radio using civilizations. And, unless we find something in our local area that is especially detrimental to developing intelligent life, we would be forced drasticly lower our odds of finding intelligent life anywhere.

For psi, the problem is much smaller. In a nutshell, it is to determine if a set of objects (humans), that we are free to study up close and in detail, has a specific property. We've been on the case for several decades at least. We haven't found any good evidence of that property (psi) existing.

T'ai Chi, you tend to get flippant answers because I can see a history of your posts being continuously credulous. You post similar topics again and again, with the same (at best) lousy evidence. Its been explained again and again why the evidence isn't very good. But that part just doesn't seem to be sticking with you.

I get the same thrill as you, contemplating the ideas that you forward. I'd like them to be true. But, I've learned to weigh evidence, and the evidence to date that supports psi is crap.

Going back to what it would take to say we've made a real effort at doing a SETI search...... "10,000 years?", I hear you wail. And "radio recievers all over the planet, enough to listen to all those stars all the time?", isn't that rediculous. Really, the problem is that huge. All we are doing at the moment is figuring out how to really do that job, just barely barely scratching the surface, and hoping we get lucky and find something amazing in the first .0001% (I just pulled this number out of my @#$, so don't try to figure out how I calculated it) of doing a thorough first attempt. It is a tremendous long shot. The SETI people are quietly watching (listening) and waiting. They are probably in for a long wait.

Are ya seeing the difference? Or have I wasted my time like the many others who have given you a patient and thorough response in the past?

Edited to add: You seem to be intelligent enough. Take the time to learn how to evaluate evidence. It will serve you well. Pick up 'Demon Haunted World' and read the Balony Detection Kit chapter, that will give you a good start. Read the whole book, you'll get and even better start.

 

[drkitten]

Seti is looking at data (signals from space) and looking for something too complex to be natural.

ID is also looking at data(DNA and stuff) and looking for something too complex to be natural[

No. SETI is looking for data, to see whether there is anything that is potentially too complex to be natural. Once something is found, then phase II of SETI will start, which will be looking at the data to see if it indeed too complex to be natural.

At least in theory, if SETI finds some interesting looking signals, then the ID task and the phase II task be quite similar in goal -- but unless the SETI proponents are much less competent than they have been so far, not at all similar in methodology.

Any reason you give to show SETI as science, can use to show ID is science too.

SETI is science because practitioners of science don't willfully misrepresent data.

ID cannot be shown to be science under that definition. Read the transcripts of Dover.

 

[woodguard]

No. SETI is looking for data, to see whether there is anything that is potentially too complex to be natural. Once something is found, then phase II of SETI will start, which will be looking at the data to see if it indeed too complex to be natural.
[/i].

Want is coming out of the telescope Lars ? (Data’s brother, STNG)
“Too complex to be natural” is the ID war cry.

At least in theory, if SETI finds some interesting looking signals, then the ID task and the phase II task be quite similar in goal -- but unless the SETI proponents are much less competent than they have been so far, not at all similar in methodology.
[/i].

So, ID is science if it changes it’s protocol a little and used a 2 phase system.(and put away the bibles)

SETI is science because practitioners of science don't willfully misrepresent data.
[/i].

Because some UFO cults misrepresent SETI data ,would that make SETI not good science.

ID cannot be shown to be science under that definition. Read the transcripts of Dover.

Dover was only one group, you can not say ID is bad science only because one group is doing it wrong. If that were a rule half of science would be gone!



My real point is just because you don’t BELIEVE it, does not make it bad science. SETI and ID at a basic level are the same science.

 

[drkitten]

So, ID is science if it changes it’s protocol a little and used a 2 phase system.(and put away the bibles)

Yes -- as if that could happen.

Because some UFO cults misrepresent SETI data ,would that make SETI not good science.

No, but if every SETI proponent and practitioner, without exception misrepresented the SETI data, that would make SETI not good science.

Dover was only one group, you can not say ID is bad science only because one group is doing it wrong.

No, Dover was not "only one group." The defense in the Dover case was unable to find a single genuine practitioner of science either to testify directly or even to be cited as a research practitioner in others' testimony.

As you said earlier, with protocol changes (if you consider "don't tell lies" just a protocol change) and a willingness to change theory in light of data instead of data in light of theory, ID could indeed be a legitimate science. And there are a number of research groups doing genuine scientific research on "complexity" and the inference of intelligent agency. The Santa Fe Institute has been working on this problem for decades (and quite well) -- the Wolpert/MacReady "No Free Lunch" theorems are considered to be major breakthroughs in information theory. Steganographers and similar research groups in cryptography have been trying to figure out ways to infer whether observed random variation in images is purposeful for several hundred years. And archeologists and anthropologists have to deal with the question of whether an artifact is "designed" or merely spurious more or less since the beginning of the field.

However, what they do is science -- because of the way they go about it.

My real point is just because you don’t BELIEVE it, does not make it bad science. SETI and ID at a basic level are the same science.

No, they aren't. SETI practitioners, by and large, don't lie about what they're doing. ID "practitioners" demontrably don't do anything else but lie.

If I tell you that you've got pneumonia and I give you penicillin, then I'm doing medicine. If I tell you that you've got "consumption" and I give you a purple crystal to wear around your neck -- I'm not doing medicine, despite the superficial similarity. The visible difference is slight -- in each case, a patient presents a complaint, I categorize it, and suggest appropriate treatment. What makes the first medicine? Reason, evidence, experience, and a willingness to adjust beliefs based on what the evidence suggests.

Steganography has those.
SETI has those.
Anthropology has those.

ID, uniformly, has none of those.

 

[Dcdrac]

SETI is looking for data based on plausible hypothesis that may or may not be supported by the data being looked for.

IDiocy claims to already have the data, GOD did it, with no need to find any data to support an implausible hypothesis.
Implausible because there is no extant evidence for a creator.

 

[rwguinn]

SETI is looking for data based on plausible hypothesis that may or may not be supported by the data being looked for.

IDiocy claims to already have the data, GOD did it, with no need to find any data to support an implausible hypothesis.
Implausible because there is no extant evidence for a creator.

Good comparison. The SETI hypothysis is that, if intellegent beings exist elsewhere, they will, likely, at some point, use the electromagnetic spectrum to communicate. It is well established that Em emmissions can and do travel through space. There is a lot of bacground EM noise that radio telescopes recieve. Intellegent communications will most likely have a pattern to them. If we search for patterns in the EM noise recieved on earth and find them, it could indicate intellegent origin.
What woodguard misses, apparently because he/she is unaware of what science is and does, is that SETI is examining all the data, not just part of it, and SETI is not presuming something is there. It is looking to see if something might be there.

 

[Hellbound]

One point to remember:

SETI is looking for life. We know life occurred once (us), and we have found no evidence that indicates it could not occur again somewhere else. Thus, the theory behind it is plausible, and the physics, chemistry, and historical data support the idea that life can arise wherever conditions are right.

ID is looking for desing. However, ID is not operating in a vacuum that consists of just an open theoretical space. We already have evidence pointing to the development of species and origins of life. Extremely strong evidence supports evolution by natural selection, a process that does not require design. More evidence is coming in year by year to support various methods of abiogenesis. Chemcials have been found that can self-synthesize, simple amino acids and protiens can be formed in the absence of pre-existing life forms. The big bang theory extends to a few tiny fractions of a second before the singularity, and evidence for it mounts every time we look. ID is not arguing for a designer, but against all this.

To accurately compare them, you'd have to assume a situation where all the science we currently knew led to the conclusion that life was highly unlikely, and well nigh impossible to ever come about. In other words, to accept that ID and SETI are comaprable you have to already accept the fallacious arguments of ID that life is immeasurably unlikely. In order to do that, you have to show that all the mound sof evidence we've ammassed (and continue to build on) for evolution, big bang, and abiogenisis is either incorrect, or more accurately is described by some design model.

They are not comparable. SETI is examining possibilities that are fully within the range of possibilities predicted by what we currently know.

ID is examining impossibilities that are completely outside the range of what we already know.

Both are looking for evidence of design, yes. And if this were all they were doing, there wouldn't be a problem. ID, however, as the movement stands today, has continually misinterpreted data, mislead others, withheld imformation, and approached the entire issue from a highly biased standpoint.

The reason ID is not science is not because of what they are looking for, but because I ahve yet to find evidence of any intellectually honest ID researcher doing unbiased, supportable work. Even the work that they have done tends to fall into a "God of the Gaps" argument. They don't try to find evidence of design, they try to disprove evidence of evolution. ID works by the "we don't see how it could've happened on it's own" principal.

In contrast, SETI works differently. SETI is looking for evidence of design. When SETI finds an anamalous signal, they don't immediately jump to "We can't expalin it by natural processes, so it's aliens!" Instead, the signal is examined for certain elements that we know are characteristic of design. Even then, they work to rule out all possible natural sources. As others have stated, this had led to the discovery of new natural phenomena. IN other words, SETI data is examined critically in an attempt to disprove it, as scienctific method demands, before gaining any measure of acceptance as evidence of extra-terrestrial life.

ID evidence is examined with the conclusion already in mind, and looked at only in ways that can bolster the theory. You don't see ID proponents examining their ideas in a manner such as "how could this have happened naturally". INstead they start with "this can't be natural!" then work out how they can prove it.

To make clear, it isn't the idea of ID (a designed universe) that makes it not science. It's the method.

 

[Indolent Wretch]

Better still...

Strangely enough, the most practical idea I've seen for interstellar travel is one that is barely even theoretical at this point: exotic matter. If we could create matter with negative mass (which is an open question -- negative energy density is a predicted consequence of quantum mechanics, but the forms it might take are unknown), then you could have a "ship" consisting of equal amounts of regular and negative matter.

Jeremy

Of course we could get lucky and Heim Theory may be correct. Now that'll be a funky universe.

 

[pgwenthold]

No. SETI is looking for data, to see whether there is anything that is potentially too complex to be natural. Once something is found, then phase II of SETI will start, which will be looking at the data to see if it indeed too complex to be natural.

At least in theory, if SETI finds some interesting looking signals, then the ID task and the phase II task be quite similar in goal -- but unless the SETI proponents are much less competent than they have been so far, not at all similar in methodology.

How about the fact that SETI defines "something complex" and then goes out and looks for it, whereas ID has the data and proclaims that it is "too complex."

There is a big difference in defining complexity before you get the data from what ID is doing.

I don't see SETI as any less scientific than an archeologist. Sure, we hear a lot about the archeologists that find stuff, but what about those that dig huge holes in the ground and come up with nothing? Are they not scientific?

 

[CFLarsen]

ID is looking for desing.

No.

ID is looking for God.

 

[Hellbound]

No.

ID is looking for God.

Yes, but theoretically it doesn't have to be. I know what they're actually doing, but I'm trying to give the greatest possible benefit of the doubt, so as not to get involved into "show me where they say God!" type debates.

In any case, my point stands. Even if they are looking for God, it's not the search in itself that causes it not to be science. It's the method.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

My real point is just because you don’t BELIEVE it, does not make it bad science. SETI and ID at a basic level are the same science.

No. Because SETI is, at its core, just a means of testing a hypothesis; specifically the hypothesis that a sufficiently advanced civilization would, either intentionally or inadvertantly, leak radio signals into space. Then scientists make conclusions based on the signals they do or do not detect. Testing hypotheses and drawing a conclusion afterward is how science works. No one would conclude that the hypothesis is true unless a signal was found.

ID on the other hand, starts with a conclusion, that there MUST have been a designer. They then go about looking for evidence that supports this conclusion. Starting with a conclusion and then looking for evidence to support that conclusion is how pseudo science works. The conslusion is already there, ID-ers consider any evidence they find to be gravy.

That is the big difference between SETI and ID.

 

[Hellbound]

Good point, Nyarlathotep (man, my fingers want to keep typing after the end of that for some reason).

However, if design was just a hypothesis, I would see nothing unscientific in looking for it, as long as it was done scientifically. That's my big issue. Data has to be examined critically. Another poster here, several years back, made a quote that I loved, one that seemed to get across the idea of science very well:

"It is the duty of every scientist to stand calmly by while his pet theory is tossed into a pit, and pounded by rocks."

We don't see this in ID. ID seems to place their theory in a padded room, looked away from view or any danger. They simply refuse to look for non-designer answers to any issue they come up with. It's not the hypothesis itself that makes in unscientific, but the way its investigated. And that is the point we need to drive home.

I am agreeing with you, but just trying to clarify the issue. I think many IDers and people unfamiliar with the arguments and reasoning get the impression that we think ID is unscientific just because they are looking for evidence of (g|G)od(s). It's not what they are looking for, but the way they look.

 

[CFLarsen]

Yes, but theoretically it doesn't have to be. I know what they're actually doing, but I'm trying to give the greatest possible benefit of the doubt, so as not to get involved into "show me where they say God!" type debates.

No.

The theory behing ID is to (try to) validate the existence of God in a seemingly scientific way. They don't just argue that the Bible is the true word of God, they argue that it is also backed with "science".

They know damn well what convinces most people today: People can see, with their own eyes, the benefits of science. People experience that science works, every day. When people fly a plane, that's science. When people get a bypass, that's science. When people drive their cars, that's science. So, the Creationists - because that's what they are - work very hard to redefine science into something that will allow them to point to the Bible as the one, true Authority.

It is not a coincidence that ID poster child Michael Behe's version of "science" also includes Astrology.

There is no "benefit of the doubt" here. We should not allow them an inch of credibility, something they clearly do not deserve. Their goal is to abolish all of science, all freedom of speech and all freedom of thought, until everyone is badgered into believing just one thing: Their interpretation of the Bible.

Those who defend ID defend religious dictatorship.