Topic: SETI Is 50 Years Old; No Sign of ET

[sam]

http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/03/14/2219246/SETI-Is-50-Years-Old-No-Sign-of-ET

"The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence is 50 years old next month, and still no sign of intelligent alien life.  Paul Davies of the  Beyond Center (also  Chairman of the SETI Post-Detection Taskgroup ) says it's  time to re-think and expand the search for ET."

[Simon]

There has to be other life out there.  Maybe we are just not intelligent enough to find it? 

[Clive]

I'm sure there is Simon but perhaps we will never find it because of the distances involved.

[Rik]

Perhaps we won't even recognise it when we do find it?

[Clive]

Quite possible Rik. 

[sam]

also just thinking about probability of intelligent life forming to the point that you can send messages out... (never mind the signatures of baceterial life... that will be done soon)...  we aren't even at that point now. Our radiosphere is around 70ly, however the power we now use to broadcast isn't what it was and is fairly directional and bounced back to the Earth. So unless we actually take this on we won't be broadcasting.

The drake equation is quite fun to play around in this respect... the length of civilizations is an important factor.

[Clive]

And here for a bit of fun is a DRAKE EQUATION CALCULATOR

I was very conservative in my input (but not on the ballot paper I might add!) and my figure for the Galaxy came out at 0.0132 civilizations.   


 

[Simon]

I didn't know what I was doing, but got 0.0100000002. 

[Clive]

The point is that nobody knows what they are doing because it's just a wild guess.  But it's easy to get those figures down to a vanishingly small number! 

[sam]

and a to a large number, its not a bad way of approximating things. If you do it based on the knowledge we have... the answer should be 1 of course, us! Though with some knowledge of the Universe you can put in some stuff. When I do it I tend to get around 2-3.... so more reasonable than you lot. Though the number of planets we have discovered that are habitable is surprisingly zero apart from the Earth.. give us 10 years though.

[Clive]

I agree with everything you say Sam.  The biggest worry is the length of time an advanced civilization might attain before destroying itself.  We have only had nuclear weapons on Earth for 65 years and we are already in danger of blowing ourselves up thanks to Madmanmahoud of Iran.   

[sam]

well he ain't the first to threaten that and won't be the last.

Yeah but you are right, it's all about getting passed that point... we have the technology just not the resources todo it... well I understand why governments (and indeed us scientists) don't see it as highly important.