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SETI: Science or Pseudoscience?

Complexity said:
Idiot.
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You know, for some unknown reason, those who use this particular single word as a reply in forum threads have an above average probability of being an Ayn Rand fan... ;)

Now SETI can be considered science. It can also be considered a big waste of money and effort (except for the development of the SETI@home software, which now has more practical clones, or so I've heard).
 
Maybe the aliens are trying to communicate with us telepathically. The psi proponents should start their own search.
 
Jorghnassen said:
You know, for some unknown reason, those who use this particular single word as a reply in forum threads have an above average probability of being an Ayn Rand fan... ;)

Now SETI can be considered science. It can also be considered a big waste of money and effort (except for the development of the SETI@home software, which now has more practical clones, or so I've heard).
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And all those (Expensive!) telescopes on mountain tops and in orbit can be considered science. They can also be considered a big waste of money and effort(except for the electronics and optical stuff, which have more practical clones, or so I've heard)
I mean, there's no sense in looking at or into things we can't get to or do anything about, is there?:scared:
 
rwguinn said:
And all those (Expensive!) telescopes on mountain tops and in orbit can be considered science. They can also be considered a big waste of money and effort(except for the electronics and optical stuff, which have more practical clones, or so I've heard)
I mean, there's no sense in looking at or into things we can't get to or do anything about, is there?:scared:
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But telescopes are used for more direct inquiries than crunching numbers to look for some hypothetical signal. Why do you think SETI got the axe in the first place? It's just not the most useful utilisation of money for space related research.
 
Jorghnassen said:
But telescopes are used for more direct inquiries than crunching numbers to look for some hypothetical signal. Why do you think SETI got the axe in the first place? It's just not the most useful utilisation of money for space related research.
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I agree... but I also feel it deserves a slice...

Oddly enough... Carl Sagan dived right into a comparison between SETI and Intelligent Design--Ellie in the "Contact" novel, after returning from her trip across space and time, set the SETI computer to work analyzing the decimal expansion of fundamental constants. The same kind of pattern that triggered an alarm that an alien signal was being received, was discovered in pi, in his story.
 
davefoc said:
With respect woodguard that statement does seem to have igored a lot of the discussion that preceded it.

If ID researchers were doing science as most of us in this thread use the word, they would be making propositions that were subject to falsification by experiment, they would be searching for the inner workings of nature not just making statements that stuff is too complex so that God must have designed it, they would not be creating theories that made sense only to people who are not versed in the fields the theories are about and more than anything they wouldn't be basing theories on a 2500 year old collection of mythology and mangled history.
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But SETI is not searching for the inner working of nature. They are looking for signals too complex, so that intelligent must of made(designed) it.

But I do see want you mean.


Complexity, Thanks for the compliment. Many a skeptic has been call a Idiot by people trapped in their dogma. :D
 
I think I need to restate my question?

I don’t understand what the difference between :

1) Looking for signals in space, too complex to be natural.

2) Looking for forms in DNA, too complex to be natural.

What is wrong with my logic?

Scientific Method, first thing is “Observe some aspect of the universe.”

The great advantage of the scientific method is that it is unprejudiced: one does not have to believe a given researcher, one can redo the experiment and determine whether his/her results are true or false. (http://physics.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node6.html#SECTION02121000000000000000)

Using ID as my example was bad, too emotional. And the ID people are twisting information for religious purpose, not good research ,not bad science.
 
woodguard said:
I think I need to restate my question?

I don’t understand what the difference between :

1) Looking for signals in space, too complex to be natural.

2) Looking for forms in DNA, too complex to be natural.

What is wrong with my logic?

Scientific Method, first thing is “Observe some aspect of the universe.”

The great advantage of the scientific method is that it is unprejudiced: one does not have to believe a given researcher, one can redo the experiment and determine whether his/her results are true or false. (http://physics.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node6.html#SECTION02121000000000000000)

Using ID as my example was bad, too emotional. And the ID people are twisting information for religious purpose, not good research ,not bad science.
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Nothing is wrong with the logic.
Both hypotheses assume a creator. The difference is in the method, and Occam's Razor.
Just because something appears to be too complex to be natural does not mean that it is too complex to be natural.
Once something complex is found, then we look for all possible explanations. ID assumes that the explanation is a designer, and stops looking. end of story.
SETI assumes natural, until a designer/manufacturer is found. Many things go into the "We don't know" pile. Patterns, even repeating patterns are not proof--take a look at Pulsars and Quasars...
If we were to recieve some sort of signal which, say, was all the prime numbers between 0 and 97, repeated at constant intervals, that could be strong indication of intellegence. Confirmation would be if we beamed the primes between 100 and 200, and got a new signal of the primes from 300-400 after a period of n years...

ETA--now, if you found tattoo'ed on all DNA the phrase "Gotcha!", that would also be a strong indication of design....but unfortunately for the ID crowd, (1) that ain't happened, and (2) one man's magic is another's science. There are a lot of very smart people out ther who can make logical connections
 
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woodguard said:
I think I need to restate my question?

I don’t understand what the difference between :

1) Looking for signals in space, too complex to be natural.

2) Looking for forms in DNA, too complex to be natural.

What is wrong with my logic?

Scientific Method, first thing is “Observe some aspect of the universe.”

The great advantage of the scientific method is that it is unprejudiced: one does not have to believe a given researcher, one can redo the experiment and determine whether his/her results are true or false. (http://physics.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node6.html#SECTION02121000000000000000)

Using ID as my example was bad, too emotional. And the ID people are twisting information for religious purpose, not good research ,not bad science.
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OK, so the main problem is your description of SETI. There is a quest for signals that are not produced by natural means, but this does not involve the word "complex".

An artificial signal would probably be be recognizeable by being very simple, in fact.

Either way, they key is that it would not be explainable by known natural processes.

An example is a signal that was detected a few years ago. Consistent like a sustained musical note. After a while, it was concluded that since pulsars can produce these signals, there is no reason to classify it as a sign of intelligence.

Such a signal was noteworthy for its character of artifice, not for some undefined quality called 'complexity'.

IDers have injected this expression into the public lexicon in such a way as to make it appear to be a common scientific property, like time, mass, or distance. It isn't, and those of us who defend the scientific viewpoint in these discussions have quite a frustrating time convincing people that using 'complexity' in a biological or astronomical context suggests the speaker is blowing the statement it out his ass.
 
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rwguinn said:
If we were to recieve some sort of signal which, say, was all the prime numbers between 0 and 97, repeated at constant intervals, that could be strong indication of intellegence. Confirmation would be if we beamed the primes between 100 and 200, and got a new signal of the primes from 300-400 after a period of n years...
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That is one of the best signal suggestions I have heard.

But one problem, you are assuming that they are using a base 10 system.
 
woodguard said:
I think I need to restate my question?

I don’t understand what the difference between :

1) Looking for signals in space, too complex to be natural.

2) Looking for forms in DNA, too complex to be natural.
Click to expand...



We've sequenced the human genome. I haven't followed the news, Woodguard -- was there anything there that was too complex to be natural?
 
AWPrime said:
That is one of the best signal suggestions I have heard.

But one problem, you are assuming that they are using a base 10 system.
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It wouldn't be necessary to assume that. Other bases could be checked. Or better yet, look for a binary signal. That can be sent with an on-off code.

The classic example is a binary image whose length is exactly the product of two prime numbers. That lends itself to a grid that has sides of length equal to the prime factors. Color in the "1's' and look for a picture of something. If there IS a picture there of recognizable content... in a sufficiently large image the chances of that being a random occurance can safely be dismissed, I think.
 
gnome said:
It wouldn't be necessary to assume that. Other bases could be checked. Or better yet, look for a binary signal. That can be sent with an on-off code.

The classic example is a binary image whose length is exactly the product of two prime numbers. That lends itself to a grid that has sides of length equal to the prime factors. Color in the "1's' and look for a picture of something. If there IS a picture there of recognizable content... in a sufficiently large image the chances of that being a random occurance can safely be dismissed, I think.
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What do you think of this signal?

1010110011001110001110001111000011110000

A binary signal with one repeat, after which it will add one 1 and a 0. Very simple but will look artificial as MJ.
It would be a big "We are here".

Then we need a next step, a common code. And I don't think that anyone has invented one yet.
 
I think Woody Woodpecker is creating a false analogy between IDiocy and a real scientific project: SETI
 
Dcdrac said:
I think Woody Woodpecker is creating a false analogy between IDiocy and a real scientific project: SETI
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Perhaps so, but I do see some similarities:

1. Both ID and SETI could be viewed as a search for intelligent life. SETI seeks it in space and ID seeks it as otherwise unexplainable patterns in the nature of life.

2. The probability of a positive result is small for each pursuit. The probability of disproving the possibility of undetected intelligence is almost zero for both ID and SETI.

The biggest difference between the two with regard to woodguard's analogy is not in the high level concept of either pursuit, rather it is in the nature of the researchers that are involved in ID and SETI.

The people involved with SETI have not done anything to suggest that they will ignore data, misrepresent the existing evidence or allow their biases to draw conclusions where none are justified. ID researchers reek of a willingness to do all that.

It is not an accident that SETI researchers are credible and ID researchers are not. By its very nature ID research requires findings that are consistent with preconceived notions. A credible researcher is going to make reports based on evidentiary information A researcher that by the nature of his field will ignore evidence that is not consistent with his preconceived notions is not credible and can only be called a researcher by a broad definition of that term.
 
Another Attempt to Reach Out

What about the other plan--contacting aliens directly? Voyager has been on its way, I forget how many years, with its pictures of human beings, recordings of our music, and a star map showing our location.

It seems rather naive to me now, though thrilling at the time as Sagan explained it on Cosmos. Now I wonder what a denizen of some far planet will do with the recording? Eat it? Use it as a frisbee? Laugh at our primitive civilization and show the star map to its Leader? "Taking this planet will be a walkover--launch the ships with the new improbability drive!"
 
The think I am starting to see the difference.

But I found it funny that a series of prime number is complex but a self building machine, that designed itself thru random mistakes it made, is not complex and is natural. :p
 
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