Talk:Search for extraterrestrial intelligence/Archive 1

Miscellaneous

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I removed:

"however, that concern is rendered moot by an examination of recent history. Television and radio signals have been broadcast into space for decades, and coherent signals are easily differentiated from random noise."

From "Is "active" SETI dangerous?" The above statement is simply not true. Our terrestrial and satellite signals are weak enough to be completely masked by background radiation within a few light years distance from earth.

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I removed the SETI Institute logo. The SETI institute is a well known SETI advocacy group and does conduct SETI observations, but is not "SETI" nor the driving force behind SETI any more than the Planetary Society or the SETI League is. It's akin to putting the American Lung Association logo at the top of a page on "Medicine."

I separated the SERENDIP section from the "Sentinal, META, and BETA" and expanded the desciption of SERENDIP up to the present day. I've also moved the SETI@home section into the SERENDIP section as it is an outshoot of SERENDIP.

I would like to see more mention of international SETI programs. Also wondered about whether it should be mentioned that NSF is funding ATA instrument development (and other SETI related instrument development).

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User:SETIGuy Feb 13, 2006

I added a paragraph to Early Work to mention the Big Ear project which actually started in 1963 (not 1985 or 1975 as others have suggested). I am a volunteer (though inactive, for the most part, due to available time) with the group that operated the Big Ear telescope.

Added a small section about the Wow! signal (linking to the larger article) after Early Work and prior to the Arecibo Message since that is when it occured chronologically.

I removed the information about Big Ear from SERENDIP, Sentinel, META, and BETA due to its irrelevance and inaccuracy.

I added External links to the former Big Ear website and the current NAAPO website. -- ChrisBianchi

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I removed:

Most mainstream scientists ignore the SETI project. Many of these skeptics regard it as pseudoscience.

I don't think SETI is ignored any more than other scientific projects. Furthermore, the second sentence is a non sequitur. First we are talking about mainstream scientists, then about "these skeptics"? There are SETI-skeptics and probably scientists who think it is pseudoscience (although most skeptics simply regard it as a waste of time), but this description is hardly accurate. If you want to add a discussion of SETI-skepticism, please do so, with proper references. --Eloquence

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The article says:

"Above 10 gigahertz, radio noise from water and oxygen atoms in our atmosphere tends to also become a source of interference. Even if alien worlds have substantially different atmospheres, quantum noise effects make it difficult to build a receiver that can pick up signals above 100 gigahertz."

The sudden jump to mentioning 100GHz seems odd. Should it be 10GHz? If it's right, it might help to reword the article to make it clear it isn't a mistake.

Seconded: Especially because the sentence is composed such that you would expect 100 to be wrong. "... Even if ..." implies that we're still looking at the same limits.

(81.83.43.193 12:33, 7 January 2006 (UTC))

ANSWER: 100 GHz is correct for quantum noise. It's the point where the equivalent noise temperature T of the quantum noise (hv/k) starts becoming significant compared to other noise sources. (h is Plank's constant, v is "nu", the photon frequency and k is Boltzman's constant).

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some notes to add

Interstellar communication is likely to be narrow-beam, point-to-point, to make it energy-efficient; and it is therefore very difficult to intercept. Signals are likely to be spread-spectrum for noise immunity; which will make them indetectable to us unless we have the spreading sequence.

So we will not find them; they will find us.

There are between 3,000 and 10,000 stars within 80 light years radius. .Y. of these having planets with liquid water.

What is the likelihood of a civilization if it exists, being a million years more technologically advanced than us? VERY HIGH . calculate this 10 billion years 4.5 billion years of 2nd generation stars? -> is our sun among the first 2nd generation stars? probably not. -> how many older? how many younger? distribution?

After a million years of nanotechnology, do they still need water? unlikely. What makes us think they would even be recognisable to us as life forms? Perhaps they are non-corporeal, and could inhabit our computer systems, create crop circles, control the weather, etc.?

These really are pseudoscience ideas. All SETI is doing is looking for a non-random (i.e. patterned) radio signal that does not come from Earth. I see no problem with that; it makes no assumptions about what kind of life is being looked for. All it assumes is that they use radio waves as a form of communication. thefamouseccles

There's no way of providing a falsifiable hypothesis for SETI. If extraterrestrial life does not exist, there is no way of proving that unless we go to EVERY planet in the universe and check it. However, if we find so much as one instance of life, that proves the hypothesis. Perhaps the best way of going about the thing is to use a null hypothesis: namely, "There is no extraterrestrial life in the universe that uses radio waves for communication."

That has problems too. We currently lack the technology to "eavesdrop" on mundane radio transmissions. For us to recieve it, it would have to be a pretty intense signal. It is likely that future technological improvements would allow us to recieve far weaker signals than we can today, but that would allow us to sample at most our own galaxy. The difficulties involved in eavesdropping on signals from other galaxies wouldn't allow us to make any conclusions about the universe as a whole.--RLent 17:05, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

WOW! Signal

Information about the WOW! Signal from 1977 might be useful/interesting on this page. It's not currently mentioned anywhere on Wikipedia.

I added the "Wow! signal" entry in Wikipedia, but there is a factual error on this page, the "Big Ear" project started 1975, not 1985. Otherwise it would be ridiculous that they detected a signal 8 years before the project actually started... -- Ylai 19:22, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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I wrote the original article for my website that this WKPD article is based on and tracked down data on the Big Ear telescope. Yep, that's right, it was built in the 1960s for a wideband sky survey, and converted to a SETI project in 1973. The WOW! signal showed up on 15 August 1977. I corrected this in my own article, which will be posted on http://www.vectorsite.net/taseti.html NLT 1 Jan 2006. I didn't modify the WKPD article; I hate to fiddle around with other folks' text, it seems rude.

Interesting radio telescope, BTW, an altitude-only transit instrument designed for surveys and built on the cheap. Incidentally, although all my stuff is public domain and I don't mind its use, it might be polite to credit the source -- the WKPD article's much changed from my own document but I can still see my own fingerprints all over it. Since I don't edit WKPD articles I will simply leave that as a polite request. MrG (Greg Goebel)

Marc Abel, 31 Jan 2006: There are a few inaccuracies and numerous omissions in the above discussion of Big Ear. I was on the staff from 1983 to 1988, took a break, and have been "back" since 2003 (although the antenna is demolished). Big Ear did several SETI projects; the first was an 8-channel receiver with an 8-channel chart recorder only. The second was a 50 channel digital search; it ran from 1977 to 1985 when the acquisition computer failed. There have been a couple more since then, but I wasn't a participant in those. We need a lot more here.

Intro

This article doesn't seem to contain any kind of concise definition of what SETI actually is. This should go in the first paragraph instead of leaping right into the discussion of it as an alternative to interstellar travel. --Mumblingmynah 22:38, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

unsupported speculation creeping in

line 39 contains a seemingly superfluous note about "ruining their planet in the process" or some other such after the more factual statement that the power output necessary for detection over large distances could be a few thousand times larger than the current earth power output. This line feels "squishy" since the effect of power production on a planet is technology dependent. For instance, is fusion of tritium in ocean water included in the calculation? How about massive solar grids in space, closer to the sun? The list of technological fixes to the power problem could go on and on -- which is why the "ruining ..." statement should be expunged. —Preceding unsigned comment added by cnmirose (talk • contribs) 13:54, 20 October 2005

I agreee. I'm taking that phrase out. Bubba73 (talk), 06:24, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Two questions

In the article it says:

Very small stars provide so little heat and warmth that only planets in very close orbits around them would not be frozen solid, and in such close orbits these planets would be tidally "locked" to the star, with one side of the planet perpetually baked and the other perpetually frozen.

If I'm thinking correctly, that would imply that the planets wouldn't rotate, right? If so, is it correct that they wouldn't rotate? Rbarreira 00:34, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Not quite. They rotate at such a pace so they always point the same face towards the sun. This is what the moon does relative to us, so we only ever see one side of it. See synchronous rotation and tidal locking (which should probably be linked from the SETI article). --Robert Merkel 04:06, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Table of contents aligned to the right?

A user has modified the article in order for the TOC to be aligned to the right. Is this a good idea? What justification is there for this? I think it should be discussed since it's not very standard (despite there existing a template for this, which has been the subject of controversy in the past too). Rbarreira 18:37, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

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I did this. Using either Mozilla, Firefox or IE, without the right alignment, I get a few lines of text, then a tall thin box of contents, next to big white blank area. The user has to scroll down to see the overview. This does not seem very useful, unless your only goal is to make sure that SETI stood for what you thought it did.

When you float the TOC right, when using Firefox the overview flows into the region to the left of the TOC, and you can read the first few paragraphs of the TOC. IE does not fill the space to the right as well, but at least it puts the TOC and the first paragraph side by side, and you can see the top of the overview. Both of these seem better than the vertical alignment, and the Firefox layout in particular is much nicer.

I did not know this was controversial. I saw it used as a template on another page I was watching, thought it was better in all cases, and so put it in. If there are cases where it is worse, please feel free to take it out. LouScheffer 20:22, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Criticism and Intelligent Design

The Intelligent Design section states that the critera for science is being tightened to diqualify ID as science. That's not true. It's ID itself that can't qualify as science. The same section also suggests that SETI is not falsifiable, and so repeats what was said in the section directly above. I wonder if this section is necessary at all. Maver1ck 08:22, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Skeptical Inquirer issue

The current issue of Skeptical Inquirer magazine (put out by CSICOP) has a series of 4 articles on SETI. I recommend it highly to editors of this article. The articles aren't at all "skeptical" in the sense of "aw, c'mon, there's no such thing as aliens". Rather, the first article takes a stance of "we've been looking for a long time and found nothing; maybe we need to lower our expectations," and the following 3 articles are largely rebuttals to this viewpoint. One quote I particularly liked (paraphrasing):

The Drake equation shouldn't be used as if it had predictive value. It is only of use as a way to organize our ignorance, so we can have a rational discussion.

KarlBunker 18:01, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Proposed merge of "SETT"

Nothing much exists in the SETT article to merge, other than the term "SETT" itself. A google search returned 105 hits for "search for extraterrestrial technology" and 26 for "search for extra-terrestrial technology." It seems to me that that makes the term "SETT" non-notable and not worth even mentioning in this article. But that's just my $.02. KarlBunker 19:50, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

References section

The References section currently appears to be blank (apart from a <refences />); references are currently given as URLs inline with the text. What's going on there? Either the references section wants to be removed, or it wants to be filled. Personally, I would go through the article moving all citations to footnotes (and am willing to do this if people want / have no objections). Mike Peel 14:11, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Ideally, the inline references should be converted into footnotes. This is actually fairly easy; at its simplest, basically just need to put <ref> and </ref> tags around the inline URLs. The "References" section at the end of the article will be automagically filled in. The best/most thorough way to do things would be to put each web link into "cite web" format, in addition to adding the <ref> and </ref> tags. See WP:FOOTNOTES and Template:Cite web and Wikipedia:Citing sources/example style KarlBunker 14:36, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I've started the process of converting the references; will continue doing so over the next few days. I've removed the reference for 'Mediocrity' ("Indistinguishable from Magic" - this article mentions "Shklovskii's and Sagan's Assumption of Mediocrity", but is hardly a decent reference for it. Mike Peel 15:30, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Optical SETI experiments -- Fourier analysis?

I found this sentence from Optical SETI experiments dubious, could someone provide a citation or rewrite (specifically the bold text)?

However, according to Fourier analysis, emitting light in narrow pulses results in a broad spectrum of emission, with the frequencies becoming higher as the pulse width becomes narrower, and an interstellar communications system could use pulsed lasers.

At first glance this looks plain wrong. Does it intend to say that after analysis a pulsed laser exhibits a broad spectrum? Does a photon's "frequency", hence its energy, change when the laser pulses? -213.219.187.253 09:56, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

It's correct - this is also known as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. If the photon's time of emission is determined with high precision, its energy (and thus its frequency) can only be measured with low precision (and vice versa). More quantitatively, δE*δt >= h/(4*pi) and, because of E = h*f, δf*δt >= 1/(4*pi); E denotes energy, f denotes frequency, δ denotes uncertainty in the variable at its right. Icek 09:03, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

BTW - anybody tried checking if some stars are emitting light in pulses ? Any project references ?

It's already described and linked in the article - a group at Harvard university is doing just that[1]. Icek 06:28, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Water Hole

I expected to see a link somewhere in the article to the radio frequency band dubbed the "Water Hole", as it is considered a likely place to detect communication. The article is clearly in progress, so I was loathe to insert the link and subject myself, but I do believe it should be included considering the direct relevance to the topic. SINsApple 01:39, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Michael Crichton

The article reads, "Science fiction writer and global warming skeptic Michael Crichton". Stating that he is a global warming skeptic almost seems like an ad hominem attack to me. Why are we bringing up someone's opinion of global warming in an article on SETI? -- Fantomx11 20:18, 29 September 2006 (UTC) article on SETI? -- Fantomx11 20:18, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

• I agree. I see no relevance to including that remark here. Crichton is much better known for beign a science fiction writer than for anything else. That description, plus the wikilink to his article, is sufficient both for the purposes of identifying whom we are talking about and also to allow the ready to learn more about him, if they choose. Johntex\^talk 20:25, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Because in matters of science he is an idiot paid by interested parties to influence public opinion. On the other hand, in matters of fiction he is a very weak writer. Simple, right? Sci-fi writer.

Uncited item built on false premise

I removed the following from the page:

The cost of this prodigious processing time is not to be overlooked: over $1,000,000,000 of electricity has been used in the effort, making SETI@home amongst the most costly failed scientific experiments undertaken. This hidden cost is almost invariably overlooked in understanding the value and risk of SETI as an enterprise.

In addition to being uncited, there are a number of false logical premises behind this statement that need some discussion before it goes back. First, the assumption is that none of those computers would have been on if it wasn't for SETI@Home. Since it was a screensaver, I find this unlikely. Second, the statement that it is a failed experiment is contentious. First, it is a project that is in progress, and second, a negative result is hardly a failure. It's part of the scientific method. With the above in mind, I strongly urge against re-adding the text to the article. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 21:39, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I've verified again the material and i agree w/ you. It fails to pass the NPOV test. Thanks for the note. -- Szvest 21:48, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

===SETI seems valuble as a scientific exercise, however, what makes us so sure we want to let "the others" know where we are. Should the native americans have searched for the europeans in the 15th century? An intelligence with great control over mass and energy might incidentally harm us, independent of their aims. Does our planet have anything besides art and zoo specimens, that isn't readily available around the universe? 209.79.199.63 06:04, 31 October 2006 (UTC)Lugosh

You seem to be missing the point. SETI is simpyl searching for signals. By detecting these signals, we're not goign to tell anyone we're here as far as we know. Of course, if we choose to respond to the signal we may very well do so. However since this hasn't occured yet, it seems wise to wait until it does. Also we have been sending signals in to space for quite a long time. Finally, it's a bit silly to assume an intelligence we detect will have greater control over mass and energy then us. When they sent the signal, they could have been behind us in terms of tech. As I've stated, we've been sending signals for quite a while. Of course, they would have sent the signal a very long time ago so most likely they would either be extinct or significantly more advanced by now but then again, by the time they receive any reply we send, we would be similarly likely be either extinct or much further. Which one us will be the most advanced is hard to say. In any case, it doesn't seem much point worrying too much about it because most likely they will eventually find us whatever we do and if they have ill-will well tough luck... Nil Einne 15:02, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Unsourced and confusing statements

SETI is not generally viewed by scientists as a trivial task. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is 100,000 light years across and contains approximately a hundred billion stars. Searching the entire sky for some far-away and faint signal is an exhausting exercise. A number of assumptions are needed for SETI to be feasible.

A basic assumption of SETI is that of "Mediocrity": the idea that humanity is not privileged in the cosmos but in a sense "typical" or "medium" when compared with other intelligent species.[citation needed] This would mean that humanity has sufficient similarities with other intelligent beings that communications would be mutually desirable and understandable. If this basic assumption of Mediocrity is correct, and other intelligent species are present in any number in the galaxy at our technological level or above, then communications between the two worlds should be inevitable.

Another assumption is that the vast majority of known life-forms in our galaxy are based on carbon chemistries, as all life-forms are on Earth. While it is possible that life could be based around elements other than carbon, carbon is well known for the unusually wide variety of molecules that can be formed around it.

The presence of liquid water is also a useful assumption, as it is a common molecule and provides an excellent environment for the formation of complicated carbon-based molecules that could eventually lead to the emergence of life.

I'm rather confused about the above which is largely unsourced. As far as I know, SETI is simply searching for transmissions from a intelligent life form. So I don't quite get the relevance of all of the above. The issue of selectings suns like ours is relevant so I didn't brint it up but I don't quite get why the rest is. AFAIK we aren't selecting planets and or places with liquid water (since we don't have yet have this info to any useful degree). It's mostly just a random search. I would assume there is some targeted but if any of the above are used in the targetting of the searches it isn't explained other then the sun bit. SETI is primarily (at the moment) looking for a non-random/background noise signal so even if we can't decode the 'signal' (if it is a signal) it's still a significant find. Whether or not a lifeform is carbon based, or needs liquid water, or mediocrity applies this seems irrelevant. So far, we've found few signals that look like they can't be explained by known natural causes. A signal will still be a signal. The only potential issue I can see is whether concentrating on the wavelength we're concentrating on makes sense to all potential lifeforms (n.b. I use the wavelength to refer to the entire EM spectrum not just radio)Nil Einne 15:11, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

NB On consideration I failed perhaps to point out if we can't decode the signal then we can't actually show we've found ETI. However, I still think the above is confusing in that currently SETI is primarily focused in finding something that appears non-natural and therefore is probably an ETI even if the ultimate goal is to show we've found an ETI which requires actually decoding the signal which is most likely to be possible if the ETI is similar to us Nil Einne 15:35, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Silly comment in need of source

Given the limitations of the speed of light for message transmission, no reply would be possible before the year 52,174 (approximately) and hence has been dismissed by some as a publicity stunt.

The above needs a source, especially since sounds silly (to me anyway). Anyone with any understanding of basic physics and astronomy should know any communication to an alien species is always going to have a very, very high latency. If you're saying don't communicate because you won't get a reply for ages you're basically saying don't communicate. But we might as well try arrives back here or whatever but saying it's a publicity stunt is just silly to me. Perhaps we will be extinct by the time a reply but we might as well try communicating and hope that someone, somewhere will receive our signal. We're not likely to be able to talk to an alien species like this:

• yo, sup' man humans?
• Well like you know in the United States the Democrats took control the Senate and Congress and Bush is pissed. And North Korea says they're going to go back to the sixy party talks. And oh yeah. Israelis and the Palestinians are still blowing each other up.
• so nothing new then man. same ol, same ol here to, you know what I'm saying?

Nil Einne 15:28, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Democrats and Republicans are only different parties for that kind of retarded American. Evidence? The oil and arm industries got more US$ 100.000.000.000 to wage war and kill much more innocent people, even with the Democrats in the majority! Surely, I hope they'll pay dearly for this.

Assumptions of water and carbon?

I was under the impression that SETI's search was almost entirely EM-receiving with the occasional message sent - thus the points under Assumptions regarding water and carbon-based lifeforms seem superfluous to this article and would be better placed in a more general 'aliens' article. I'll remove them in a week unless you have something to say. Danlibbo 03:56, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

It may help narrow the search somewhat; if you've got stars whose planets could not possibly have water on them they're probably not promising targets for scrutiny. But, yes, at this point in time we do not have the technology to use these assumptions to narrow the search much. --Robert Merkel 23:46, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Hey saw a thing about analysing the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet for the first time - so we're getting closer...but it's still a long way away --Danlibbo 04:25, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

SETI Making Contact on YouTube

YouTube is not a verifiable source, more so that clip which only has a watermark for "effectmatrix.com". Thus it is not enough to just cite YouTube for claims like that. Find a written, published and unbiased article or book citation. --Danlibbo 04:20, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Conspiracy

I removed the Conspiracy section because it is unsourced (a YouTube link does not meet Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Danlibbo (talk • contribs) added it back and requested discussion. I plan on removing it again because, as I indicated, it fails to meet the Wikipedia standard for sourcing, but if anyone has a better citation, now's the time to add it. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 14:17, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Agree. This is a pretty absurd source. I am particularly worried by the claim in the comment that "a moderator" told whoever added it that it could be kept. Morwen - Talk 15:43, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I've discussed this with the editor at User_talk:Nima_Baghaei#SETI_Contacts and he/she has asserted that no source meeting Wikipedia:Reliable sources is available and has also implied that he/she is trying to use Wikipedia to draw attention to this conspiracy. I have informed the editor of the WP:NOR implications of this as well and am removing the section. I urge any other editor (specifically Danlibbo) to come here first before restoring the content unless the quality of the reference has been upgraded. Please note, this is not part of some 'jihad against conspiracy theories', this is basic encyclopedia janitorial work. References are important, triply so for claims like this. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 18:18, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

you guys realise that this is talking about conspiracy theories right? the whole idea is that there is no reliable source.

• to not mention something based on the lack of evidence is one thing, but to refuse debate is ludicrous - the clear majority of people who visit wikipedia do so either as a starting point for further research or as a sole reference point for basic information (ie a brief rundown on the topic and major events regarding the topic should be mentioned)
• the video isn't necessarily as bogus as it might look, a cursory investigation shows that several pretty high-ups attended the talk at the national press club (thus the argument has pretty much as much weight as any other good conspiracy theory)

:[on a side note, i find it amazing that no point is made on the page for jfk regarding the assassination conspiracies which have, by far, outlasted most of his other legacies save, for example, the vietnam war and the cuban missile crisis - consider if you were back at school, presenting a paper on jfk's legacies - you seriously wouldn't mention the conspiracies?]
and please don't pretend that wikipedia is a real encyclopaedia (let alone a reliable citation) - not only is that logic seriously flawed, but it weakens the structure of wikipedia as a whole
:as far as this argument requiring citations is concerned: either you request citation for every piece of movie and biographical trivia, or you allow those sections which don't feasibly or logically require fully reliable citations to be present, but just clearly marked and watched closely
--Danlibbo 11:00, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

There's a difference. Magazine articles have been written about JFK, as have books. A youtube video does not meet Wikipedia:Reliable sources, those do. Your threat to edit war over this is also inappropriate. It is not proper to use Wikipedia as a platform for original research, which is what the posting of this video is attempting to do. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a press release center. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 15:45, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

"Your threat to edit war over this is also inappropriate." no sh*t!
"Magazine articles have been written about JFK, as have books." I'm not arguing the conspiracy theories should be included - pay attention - i'm arguing that mention should be made that such conspiracy theories exist --Danlibbo 02:06, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

this argument should really never have come up - i suggest someone (i'm guessing nima) rewrite the contribution such that:

• it only mentions the claim was made
• provides another source supporting that (this looks semi-reasonable, but i'm sure someone who cares can find something better)
  

then the argument about whether to include that such a 'theory' exists can begin --Danlibbo 02:06, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

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ok - what's happened: there is now a conspiracy theory section that mentions that there is a conspiracy (as per nima's original link) and nothing more (any conjectures drawn by editors must have verifiable references - any problems, discuss it here and it can be edited or removed

Should we include the Disclosure Project's conspiracy theory?

Now that everyone's finally on the same page: I reckon mention should be made of the conspiracy, as mentioned by Nima_Baghaei above, as it's relevant and probably of interest to readers of the page much like the 1947 Roswell UFO_incident. On the other hand, the 'Disclosure Project' (http://www.disclosureproject.org/ website) that first claimed the conspiracy theory is hardly notable (and even they say there were only 20 or so people at the National Press Club for the original talk). So the argument becomes: "How interesting is such a conspiracy theory to the readers of SETI? Is it worthy of inclusion?" --Danlibbo 02:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

(I think this edit is suitable for inclusion) --Danlibbo 02:49, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I think it's relevant. Include it. 202.161.12.249 05:59, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

agree - 124.189.91.34 22:51, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

That specific edit is absolutely not appropriate as it fails to assert a reliable source. Cite a newspaper article, not a youtube link. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 23:08, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Original Research

Paragraphs 3 through 5 of "Where are they now?" sound like original research. Please add references. --Jemecki 03:23, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

New detector array

[2] "Eavesdropping On The Universe: New Radio Facility Could Detect Earth-like Civilizations Around 1,000 Nearest Stars" tells of a new tool for surveying out to a 30 light year radius for signals such as the ones we on Earth have been incidentally sending out for over 100 years. The new MWA-LFD, which is designed to study frequencies of 80-300 Megahertz, will pick up the same frequencies used by Earth technologies, rather than the present search for special beacons at high frequencies. Source: Harvard-Smithsonian Center For Astrophysics Date: January 8, 2007. I willl not jump in and edit this page, but thought this new info should have a home in the article. Edison 14:51, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

77 minutes

I read a report about the detection of a stong signal from near the center of the galaxy on Sept 30 and Oct 1, 2005. It repeated five times and lasted about ten minutes each time and repeated every 77 minutes. I don't know if this is a valid report. Does anyone know? Should it be mentioned in the article? Bubba73 (talk), 01:15, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Here's a source.[3] The article indicates that the signals were certainly interesting, but there's no consensus that they didn't have a natural source.--Caliga10 03:22, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I feel that this is worth mentioning in the article, but I'm not comfortable doing it. Bubba73 (talk), 03:50, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I put the first one at the end of "See also". Bubba73 (talk), 03:54, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi folks -- the interpretation of this as a SETI signal is (AFAICT) entire due to one kooky Linda Moulton Howe, and no scientist (or other reliable source) is talking about it as a ETI. Sdedeo (tips) 17:29, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, well. I'm the one that put GCRT J1745-3009 under "see also". From what I read it was considered a possibility. From the shape of the signal at that page, it looks like some contnuous beam on something that is rotating every 77 minutes. Bubba73 (talk), 17:36, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Bubba73 -- do you hav a source other than LMH? Happy to include it, but we definitely can't include every scientific phenomenon that someone claims is an ETI. Just out of curiousity, I took a look at the original Nature paper. It's certaintly a curious source! As a sidenote, though, the usual radio SETI searches (like SETI@home) confine themselves to looking for very narrowband emission (i.e., emission confined to a single frequency with a very small linewidth.) They wouldn't consider this a candidate signal because the emission is very broadband. Sdedeo (tips) 17:41, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think I have another source. I first heard about it several days ago, but I don't remember where. (I get newsletters, etc). Then I decided to look over here to see if it was mentioned. It wasn't so I asked on the talk page. I was given the reference above, and I think that the thing I read originally refered to this. Then I found an article about GCRT J1745-3009 and thought that it should at least be mentioned under "see also". But if it is not considered a possible intelligent signal, then it shouldn't go there. Bubba73 (talk), 03:19, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Our Sun as a sixth-generation star?

What are you talking about? It’s obviously third generational. The Universe is approximately 15 billion years old (slightly shaved), our Sun has been shining for 4.5 billion . . . All true, for stars about the same size of our Sun.

But large stars live and die quicker. The entire life cycle of a star destined to be a red giant is only 2 billion years. So the second generation would start at 2 billion years of age for the universe and (slightly shorter) for the galaxy, the third generation at 4 billion, and so on and so forth. And generations of stars using up their hydrogen fuel and then using the by-products for fusion is how we get carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, magnesium and everything else needed for life. For example, carbon forms when two helium atoms collide to form beryllium-8, and then within a very, very brief fraction of a second collide with a third helium nucleus.

So, was it at six billion years of age? Seven billion? Eight billion that the Milky Way galaxy had enough atoms in interstellar dust to form rocky planets? At a certain point, this has to become a quantitative argument. And we could sure use someone who knows this stuff to help us figure out, how many red giants, and how many other stars living slower lives but also adding atoms to the galaxy.

I myself consider it to be an open possibility that there could be societies much older than us in the Milky Way galaxy. FriendlyRiverOtter 22:22, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Paranormal??

Why is SETI considered to be under the scope of paranormal research. Labelling it as such degrades its authority. Jrbray 06:22, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Beats me. They also claim Extraterrestrial life to be under their project (Wikipedia:WikiProject Paranormal). I don't see what is paranormal about the possibility of life on other planets, or the search for it. It is paranormal only if you think they are here. Bubba73 (talk), 03:37, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Why is that paranormal? 129.44.172.8 11:37, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

That makes no sense to me either. SETI does radio astronomy. That falls under science. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Miskatonic (talk • contribs) 03:05, 12 May 2007 (UTC).

It was added 2006-10-15. Unless there are objections with valid reasons for it being considered paranormal, I suggest we remove it. Any objections? Bubba73 (talk), 03:30, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Note, the same project tag was removed from Extraterrestrial life 2007-03-25. Bubba73 (talk), 03:34, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I see no connection to the paranormal, so I'm premoving the Paranormal Project tag. Bubba73 (talk), 13:22, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

falsifiability

Under "criticisms", the article says "... assertion of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence has no good Popperian criteria for falsifiability".

An assertion that there exists extraterrestrial intelligence is definitely not falsifiable. However, the assertion that there is no E.I. is falsifiable - just find one. That seems to me to be the way SETI is working. They are not claiming that there definitely is E.I., but if they find one, that would falsify the null hypothesis that there isn't any E.I. Bubba73 (talk), 06:22, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

pseudoscience?

It is unfair to call SETI pseudoscience. Just because you are searching for something that might exist, but haven't found it yet doesn't mean it is unscientific. They have tried to detect Gravitational radiation for decades, and so far there is no direct evidence for it. Same thing for the Higgs boson. Neither of these searches are considered pseudoscientific or non-falsifiable. Bubba73 (talk), 04:02, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

The falsifiable hypothesis is that something does NOT exist. The burden of proof is on the naysayers. Jrgetsin 18:55, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Gravitational radiation is based on Einstein's theories, most of which have been proven very accurate. Einstein is science. Personally I do believe that it's a waste of money to do scientific research on gravitational radiation, but it's still science.

Seti is as scientific as trying to find evidence that God exists.

• First there is no undisputed definition of intelligent life. According to biologists primates, dolphins and even octopuses (a cephalopod) are intelligent. Cephalopods have been around for over 425 million years yet they never felt the urge to communicate to any other species. They are actually able to communicate with divers, researches and people keeping them as pets but only do so once we initiate it.

• The kind of Homo Sapiens that speaks, builds houses, wears clothes and so on is around little over 10,000 years. The technology currently in use for Seti is just a few decades old. What's a decade on the 15 odd billion years since the Big Bang?

We know that catastrophic event have almost wiped out all life on earth several times, we've seen the evidence of similar catastrophic events on most other planets, even witnessed one live (Levi Shoemaker). We have no idea, not even a clue to base an educated guess on, how long mankind will be around or how long our technological advanced society will last.

• Seti not technically advanced enough to actively communicate with intelligent extra-terrestrials even if these do exist. It is impossible to predict how much time it might take to make all the technological break-througs needed to develop such an active communication system. Once it's there, there is no other way to test it than to actually communicate... with...?

• I can make my old VIC-20 computer communicate with my current computer:
  • through a modem at 300 bps (if my current computer still is able to support such a low bitrate?) as long as I make sure they're using the same protocol, handshake, bitrate, character set and so on
  • through a serial interface. Although the VIC20 interface is nowhere near standard RS232 it can be done.

The good thing about such an experiment is that I could get instant feedback. As long as we're not able to set up a worm hole connection between us and ET, there will be no practical way to test our ET phone line.

• How capable are we to communicate? I can read and write some English, but it's not my native tongue. I might be able to express some essential signals, using hands and facial expressions as well as sounds, to people who speak a language that I totally do not know. I was able to tell when my dog wanted a walk, or food, or a hug. Character sets are even in the 21st century so badly standardized that it's still not uncommon to receive emails containing ŪζŹğŐ characters.

• Champollion was able to decypher hieroglyphs thanks to the coincidental discovery of the Rosetta stone but if we could bring an Egyptian mummy back to life there would still be nobody able to actually speak with him/her. We can only guess what this language must have sounded like. There are several written languages from past civilizations that we're not (yet) have been able to decypher.

• There are currently over 1 million species on this planet, over 5000 species of mammals. How may of these species developed speech? How many developed written language?

• Ever had a phone conversation where a 3rd party came throught? How willing and able to communicate are you when that happens? Even if we would be able to catch an interstellar communication, it's probably not directed to us and highly inappropriate to break in on the conversation.

• Even if there are ET's out there in the Milky Way with the technology to send signals directly to us, does it make sense to them to do so? Even if they would know our exact location? The Milky Way is a disk 10,000 light years in diameter. It's like standing in New York, trying to whisper in the ear of a person in Australia. For our current technology it's impossible to maintain communications with our own satellites more than a couple of light-minutes away.

The current most widely accepted estimated outcome of the Drake Equation is 0.0000008. The highest estimate I've ever seen was 10,000,000. That last number falls IMHO in the category wishful dreaming. Is 8 a fair compromise? Drake didn't even take into account the number of stars that are absolutely unable to support life, like red dwarfs, red giants and lots of others. Nor did he know the recent discovery that lots of candidate stars have a giant gas planet similar to jupiter orbiting very close by and with extreme velocity. But against all odds lets say there are 8 planets somewhere in the Milky Way where currently intelligent life might live that might be willing and able to communicate with us. As far as I know Drake didn't define willing and able either. The octopus is intelligent life willing and able to communicate. With its 8 arms and lots of suction cups it can do a zillion things our silly primitive hands can only dream of. If it would have had the urge to develop technology it would have had an evolutionary head start on us of hundreds of millions of years. Rolling on the sea floor laughing at our few dozen years of radio telescopy and computers.

I personally estimate the chances of life on other planets in the Milky way near 1. The chances of a lifeform as intelligent as the octopus somewhere in the universe might well be near 1 as well, anywhere within the reach of our radio telescopes that chance is very near zero, lets say 0.0000008. Chances that that creature actually felt the urge to build radio telescopes compatible with ours? Is 0.00000000000008 a fair estimate? Chances that this civilization has either ceased to exist or that it will rise thousands, millions or even billions of years into the future? Chances that that civilization doesn't even want to communicate with us? Chances that they tried to make a similar equation as Drake's, only to conclude that the numbers are either unknown or too small to take seriously?

Actually spending lots of resources trying to communicate with ET with our current technology, based on an equation with a total lack of definitions and lots of blank spots, with an unknow but undoubtedly extremely small probability that it might lead to an actual communication more meaningful than the WOW signal? That's not science, not even pseudoscience, it's rediculous.

What's scientific about trying to find a needle in a random hay stack without any particular reason to believe that there might actually be a needle in that specific hay stack? MythBusters have proven it possible to find deliberately hidden needles, even made of bone, in a particular hay stack. Both the number of hay stacks and the number of actually existing needles are high, chances of an odd needle ending up in some odd hay stack might be high as well. Probability of actually finding one is higher than the probability of getting struck by lightning. We all know that lightning does kill several people a year. "Science is reasoned-based analysis of sensation upon our awareness. As such, the scientific method cannot deduce anything about the realm of reality that is beyond what is observable by existing or theoretical means." (quotation from the Wikipedia article on science)

Although I'm a firm believer in the theory that we're not unique, this is still pure speculation and belief. And it will stay equally speculative in the foreseeable future, unless we learn to develop practical use of worm holes or similar futuristic technology. And even then a seriously intelligent ET wouldn't consider communications with a silly creature like man. Maggy Rond 06:46, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Maggy Rond is to be commended for the stamina of her typing muscles, if nothing else, but this page and Wikipedia in general isn't the place to debate whether SETI is pseudoscience. The purpose of the article is to describe the thing as it exists, and the purpose of this discussion page is to discuss how to make the article better. What is or isn't valid science can and should be debated elsewhere. KarlBunker 14:08, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I didn't start this sub-thread about pseudoscience, I just replied to it. This IS the Discussion page, isn't it? If this isn't the place to discuss a highly controversial Wikipedia article, then what is? Some of the first lines of the article are

The general approach of SETI projects is to survey the sky to detect the existence of transmissions from a civilization on a distant planet, an approach widely endorsed by the scientific community as hard science (see, e.g., claims in Skeptical Inquirer [1]). (SETI is a scientific organisation.)

I agree that the techniques used by SETI are hard science techniques. But the underlaying assumption that the use and refinement of these techniques will eventually lead to any scientific result, e.g. the proof of existence of extraterrestrial intelligence, is pseudoscience. So IMHO these lines should be rewritten.Maggy Rond 21:42, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

But the conclusion of the SETI searches is not "life" or "no life". What they actually claim is roughly "there are no continuously present, monochromatic carrier signals of more than 10^-26 w/m^2, and frequency 1-3 GHz, from any of the 150 nearest stars" (numbers are from memory, and may be wrong). This is absolutely hard science - a reproducible experiment, falsifiable, etc. The *motivation* is to find life, but the actual experiment is measuring the intensity of radio waves. The actual scientific reports make this distinction very clear. LouScheffer 23:01, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

SETI Simulation

I am running a SETI simulation where participants can try decoding messages sent from a simulated extraterrestrial intelligence (and optionally send). It can be found at SETI Simulation. Is it appropriate to include as a link in the entry? 69.121.214.226 03:36, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Talk page archiving

This talk page is pretty long. I'm planning on setting up automatic archiving (courtesy of User:MiszaBot). If anyone has any thoughts/objections please let me know. Adam McMaster (talk) 12:42, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

And, done. Threads which haven't been edited in a year will be automatically archived. Adam McMaster (talk) 16:34, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

What about the time factor?

Homo sapiens has only been producing meaningful radio signals for a century, expanding to a volume of 4.2 x 10^6 cubic light years out of the 8 x 10^12 cubic light years in our galaxy, so the probability of any one reasonably localized society at a random location in our galaxy finding us through SETI-like radio means is less than one in a million. Yet given a density of one star per 40 cublic light years, our radio signals should already have reached about 100,000 stars and their associated planets.

If someone out there were searching by optical means sensitive enough to identify a settlement of 1,000 or more (presumably occuring as early as 10,000 years ago), that evidence would exist throughout 4.2 x 10^12 cubic light years, but since our galaxy is only 1,000 light years thick, only 3.14 x 10^11 cubic light years of this information sphere intersects our galaxy. Then the probability of detection by a single competently searching civilization could be as high as 0.075 The total number of stars within the visible evidentiary sphere should be about 8 x 10^9.

LADave (talk) 05:39, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

The logic of this sentence in "Where are they" is unclear

"Science writer Timothy Ferris has posited that since galactic societies would most likely be only transitory, then an obvious solution is an interstellar communications network, or type of library consisting mostly of automated systems."

What does the "since" part have to do with the "then" part?

--208.54.94.45 (talk) 22:33, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

This article is becoming less scientific by the minute. If it had to include every single personal theory every "science"(-fiction !) writer has ever come up with, we'd be so far out of science, right into the Land of Imagination lol. Could anyone straighten out this article a little and remove that (space-)junk. --Mekmtl (talk) 18:45, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Misleading sentence.

As was suggested by Richard Carrigan, a particle physicist at the US Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois, 'passive' SETI could also be dangerous in style of computer viruses. [8]

I know Wikipedia is based on verifiability and not truth, but Richard Carrigan is a little off even according to his colleagues in the computer/information/security field. The only way ETI could transmit an effective virus would be if they had very recent schematics of our computer architecture, and the architecture of the operating systems we use. The speed of light would require a civilization to be within a five light-year radius or less. Anything further away would probably make the engineered virus obsolete. The only way around this distance "limit" would be to engineer a trojan virus that would be activated by humans and which would gather information once here. This would also require a very advanced Artificial Intelligence agent.

Given that most ETI civilizations are probably farther than 5 light-years away (if there are any) the virus would have to target something very specific (or obsolete), which would only cause minor problems; or they would need to have access to malicious strong AI and hope we can assemble it for them without understanding what it is. Deepstratagem (talk) 08:39, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

This article is becoming less scientific by the minute. If it had to include every single personal theory every "scientist" has ever come up with, we'd be so far out of science, right into the Land of Imagination lol. Could anyone straighten out this article a little and remove that (space-)junk. --Mekmtl (talk) 18:47, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Hard Science

SETI I believe can hardly qualify as soft science since its basic tenet is not falsifiable. Any comments? 69.211.150.60 13:24, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

The very strongest statements, such as intelligent civilizations must exist somewhere else in the universe other than Earth are indeed not falsifiable. But no reasonable SETI researcher would claim this. Instead they claim we have found (did not find) the following evidence... which *is* falsifiable.

"Science" is primarily a methdology: make a hypothesis and test it. Good theories make predictions that are specific and distinquishing, and can hypothetically be falsified by contradictory evidence. SETI is not a theory. SETI is a research program. It's no different than searching for unicorns or signatures in genomes that say "Yahweh designed this." In short, it does not qualify as hard science despite it's "affiliations." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.220.31.30 (talk) 18:08, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

The observations of SETI are very hard science. The basic hypothesis (for radio observations) is There exists at least one coherent microwave transmitter, not made by humans, of at least X watts, visible to us, in our galaxy. This is falsifiable by looking at a certain sensitivity level and not finding any....

     Wrong. Absense of evidence is not a "falsification." You do not know what you're talking about.

...The opposite hypothesis, There exists no coherent microwave transmitters of more the X watts anywhere in the galaxy is also falsifiable, by finding one. These hypotheses in principal could be quite strong, since the physics of radio supports detecting very small transmitters, though we can only see big ones now. We know the waves are coherent over very long ranges (radio interferometer observations between earth and satellites, and VLBI) so antennnas capable of detecting roughly 1 watt transmitters, anywhere in the galaxy, are in theory possible (though way too expensive now, of course). This leads to a very strong falsifiable statement, such as There are no transmitters, not built by us, of 1 watt or more anywhere in the galaxy

Now suppose you find a signal. Then your hypothesis is There is no non-intelligent process that generates signal with characteristics Z where Z is modulated, narrow-band, or some other trait. This is falsifiable by thinking of a non-intelligent process that could create such a signal.

Suppose you don't find a signal. Then the falsifiable hard science part is there are no transmitters in our galaxy of power X or more. Successively softer are the conclusions there are no radio using civilizations, then there are no technical civilizations, and there are no civilizations, and there are no intelligent beings.

Statements about beings based on biology are in principal falsifiable, too, since nothing in physics prevents you from examining each planet in detail. So the statement there exists (or does not exist) any self-replicating molecules of size X or greater, anywhere in the galaxy except Earth is in principal falsifiable. Of course this is even less practical to check than a comprehensive radip search.

Basically, claims about evidence are hard science, but claims about existence are not. I think all the serious SETI scientists understand this very well indeed.

LouScheffer 16:56, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

The hypothesis 'Life exists on other planets' is not falsifiable. Sorry. My point is that other studies are claimed to be pseudoscience because they are not falsifiable. By that definition SETI is pseudoscience. If one tries to be consistent. 68.109.234.155 19:07, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Can you explain why you think this? The hypothesis a technical civilization exists on Mars is falsifiable, and we have falsified it. The hypothesis life exists on Mars we are quite close (in historical time) to either falsifying or proving, by a global survey, finding the most likely spots, sending robot laboratories, etc. Doing the same for other planets in the solar system is harder, and planets around other stars much harder yet, but it does not seem physically impossible. So the idea is clealy falsifiable, though we do not have the technology to do so yet. LouScheffer 19:22, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, we would have to observe something that would show that life does not exist anywhere in the universe to falsify the statement 'Life exists on other planets' In other words the classic 'there exists a black swan' is not falsifiable since there is no observation that will show the opposite. To me this is a fallacy. Now some people say astrology is pseudoscience but it IS falsifiable. And many of Freuds theories are falsifiable. There seems to be a great misunderstanding about all of this. Some people say that economics is not a science or archaeology. Do you see my point? 68.109.234.155 19:47, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I see your point, if SETI was trying to settle whether life exists anywhere in the universe. But (most) SETI has smaller goals, trying to determine if life exists in our galaxy. (Check out the Drake equation, current radio and optical surveys, etc.). This seems clearly falsifiable to me (we've determined it for one planet (Earth), are almost done with another (Mars), and it's only a matter of scale to extend this to the trillion or so planets in the galaxy.). Do you agree that the statement 'Life exists in our galaxy' is falsifiable? If so, why not? LouScheffer 20:26, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

It is not falsifiable. Again it order to falsify it you must propose an observation that would falsify it. Again if I say all swans are white all I have to do is produce one black swan and the would be the falsifying observation. What would be the falsifying observation in the preceding example? Again how would you falsify a black swan exists? Do you see the point. It is all in the falsification wiki article. 68.109.234.155 22:14, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

It also depends on your definition of life - if 'life' is expected to cover a whole planet uniformly and is easy to find (in say the first foot of soil) the a statement 'there is life on Mars' is falsifiable. But if, as is more reasonable, *life* can be hiding in small pockets, at unknown depth, and has unknown chemical make up, then the statement is not falsifiable, since you can't look everywhere and in every concievable way to find it. So define what you mean by *life* first. sbandrews (t) 22:28, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Statements that something exists *are* falsifiable *if* you specify a limited place to search. For example, purple elephants exist in the San Diego zoo is falsifiable. Likewise, purple elephants exist on Earth, since you can examine the Earth in enough detail to find any purple elephants, if they exist. If you don't find any, you've falsified it. Purple elephants exist in our galaxy is beyond our ability to settle right now, but not in principle. Only the fully general Purple elephants exist is not verifiable, since they might exist in some far away part of the universe we cannot even in principle examine. Applied to SETI, the statement life exists in our galaxy is falsifiable - you search for it in enough detail to find it if it exists, using whatever definition of life you adopt. If you have examined all the possible places, and not found it, then it does not exist. Of course we cannot do this yet, but falsifiability requires that we can do do in principle, not that we can do so right now. LouScheffer 22:46, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

No saying life exists in the galaxy is not falsifiable. Again what would we observe to show the premise is false??? OK then you must agree that saying God exists is falsifiable. 68.109.234.155 22:49, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, life does indeed exist in the galaxy - you and I are alive, and we exist in the galaxy. The claim that life exists in the galaxy is falsifiable, although the test would be rather difficult - check every planet in the galaxy. Not presently possible, but not a theoretically impossibility. But since live does exist in the galaxy, we know it can exist. --RLent 21:23, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

How about life exists on Mars? Do you agree that this is falsifiable? If so, then 'life exists in our galaxy is just as falsifiable; it's only a matter of scale. LouScheffer 23:01, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

How about aliens came to earth 1.5 billion years ago and planted the first DNA or bacteria and started life. Do you think that is falsifiable? Or black swans exists in this room. Then extrapolate the black swans exist on earth. Only just a matter of scale? 68.109.234.155 23:13, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

"but falsifiability requires that we can do do in principle, not that we can do so right now" I do not think that is correct otherwise we can always say we can go back in time and see what happened or go forward to see what will happen. 68.109.234.155 23:23, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

That's not a valid point. We could, given enough time, build probes that could search every planet in the galaxy for life. It's not at all clear that we could, even in principle, build a time machine. The goals of SETI are much more modest. The claim "there is a transmitter on some planet outside the solar system sufficiently strong to be detected from Earth" is falsifiable.--RLent 18:17, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you people are missing the point. The falsifiability argument is meant to show that no matter how many times we look and find nothing, you people are just going to say we haven't looked enough and ramble on about "absence of proof" and "scale." Also you might consider that just because something is soft science doesn't mean that its pseudoscience -you don't really need to break your backs trying to prove that SETI is "hard." This article contains a lot of bias on a subject which is fairly controversial. Drunkboxer 17:42, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect, your speculation as to what the "you people" are going to say is irrelevant to the issue at hand: whether or not SETI claims are falsifiable. You seem to be saying that they are not falsifiable, not because they aren't, but because even if they are, people will make excuses. That's hardly a good argument.

Any argument that assumes that SETI proponents will never give up despite having searched extensively and repeatedly and found nothing within a limited and well-defined search range is assuming that proponents are not rational to begin with. So it's not surprising the conclusion of such an argument is that the search is not rational. --C S (talk) 10:42, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

falsifiability

So the criticism of SETI on falsifiability grounds is problematic. I have no complaint against it as a criticism, but it's strange to insert it here to say the least. There is much of science that does not proceed on the basis of falsifiable claims, nor do many scientists think of themselves as trying to falsify their claims (rather they see themselves as confirming them). So falsifiability is a bit of a straw man in that regard. I realize it is a very popular (in the sense of "pop science) way to present science, but it hardly gets at the intricacies of actual science. Also, in a strict sense, SETI is falsifiable. An exhaustive search would disprove the hypothesis (just like a thorough enough search would disprove the existence of certain hypothetical particles). --C S (talk) 03:46, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Gliese 581 e laser signal

Should this be included somewhere: [4]? Offliner (talk) 21:08, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

External links

I've deleted all of the external links from this article, because I believe they're completely unnecessary. Previously, there were way too many links, so I was just going to trim them down. But in doing so, I realised that any of the sites which were notable/important enough to be included also have their own WP articles and so should be listed under "See also" instead. Since there's no "official" SETI web site, it doesn't really make sense to try and list the sites of all the various SETI-related organisations (especially since Wikipedia is not a directory of links). There were also a lot of links to articles, etc. before, which while useful should be included as references in appropriate places instead of just being linked at the end of the article. Adam McMaster (talk) 08:24, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

goofy POV material

A couple of sections contain wildly POV material. The section "Interstellar Message Realized and Paper Projects" looks like a vanity edit. Under "Probe SETI and SETA experiments," the material on Rose and Wright's work clearly just represents their POV, but it stated as if their opinions were logical deductions whose validity was universally accepted.--Fashionslide (talk) 22:15, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

"Scientific Community"

The question of whether something is science is quickly a question of whether it is worth funding. In the article the clause I deleted (". . . an approach widely endorsed by the scientific community as hard science.") is immediately followed by: "The United States Government contributed to SETI early on, but recent work has been primarily funded by private sources." We must conclude that the value of SETI is not as widely endorsed by the scientific community as it once was. Thus the clause is POV. It should be deleted, since it can't be changed to state that the scientific community supports SETI's public funding. Such support or lack thereof is going to depend entirely on whether public funding of SETI helps or hinders public funding of members' own projects. No one is disinterested. Neither are laymen taxpayers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eye.earth (talk • contribs) 15:03, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

You seem to be confused as to the meaning of the term "hard science". Saying something is endorsed as hard science is not a comment about whether it is worth funding, of great value, or whatever. Given this confusion, I have a hard time disentangling your point from your comments. --C S (talk) 15:34, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Imagine the sentence following the deleted clause said: "Private funding supported SETI early on, but recent work has been primarily funded by the U.S. government." The deleted clause would arguably not be POV then. The public funding would strongly imply a generally increased level of support by the community of scientists and laymen taxpayers. By the same line of reasoning, the fact of reduced public funding can be taken as a sign of reduced support by those same people. Thus it is POV to state that SETI is endorsed by the scientific community. It is supported by some, but that support in general is not what it used to be. The deleted clause disguises this changed level of support.

I think the adjective 'hard' is being mistakenly used as a counterpoint to 'pseudo'. The issue is one of science vs pseudoscience. I'm not arguing that reduced funding means that more people think of SETI as a pseudoscience. They don't. They just think (probably correctly) that it doesn't merit public funding. Eye.earth (talk) 16:51, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Again, I think you are conflating issues. Issue #1: "endorsed as hard science" does not have anything to do with the level of funding. You are seemingly interpreting this to mean "endorsed via governmental support and widespread scientific community pressure to fund it". So your connecting the dots of the two sentences to imagine that they are reflecting some POV is quite unjustified. Whether or not SETI is hard science is something that is debated and discussed in the article, so a summary sentence explaining the scientific community consensus is perfectly ok. Issue #2: Scientific value is not strongly correlated with level of funding. Indeed, the level of funding is often pointed out to be misleading. For political reasons, the government funnels huge amounts of money into certain diseases instead of more basic science research. This doesn't mean scientists generally think researching those specific diseases is more important than understanding the basic science. Issue #3: you don't like the term "hard science" but it is often used. It is not generally used as a "counterpoint to 'pseudo'". It is used as a counterpoint to "soft science". See hard science for a basic explanation. --C S (talk) 02:38, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

To avoid problems of misinterpretation, I have changed the term "endorsed" to "viewed". I hope that resolves whatever issues you are having here. The meaning to me is clearly the same. --C S (talk) 02:41, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

The government directs the flow of scientific largess based on input from many different interests. That this results in some grotesque misallocations in no way invalidates my point that a reduced level of governmental funding indicates a change in the general level of support for SETI. The question is whether it has changed in the scientific community specifically. It surely has, which is probably why public funding dried up. The science behind the hardware was presumably always considered hard, but the soft science speculations and projections originally justifying the plausibility of SETI's success have apparently coalesced into harder and harder science that compels people to realize that advanced life is arguably much, much rarer than first supposed. The clause "an approach widely viewed by the scientific community as hard science" seems to me still blatantly POV. But "an approach variously endorsed by the scientific community as hard science" seems to me an acceptable compromise, with the added Skeptical Inquirer footnote link to back it up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eye.earth (talk • contribs) 01:07, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm still greatly puzzled here. Your phrasing of "variously endorsed" indicates that less people think of SETI as hard science, and that indeed in particular, some major groups of scientists may think otherwise. Do you have any justification for saying this? Other than these comments about funding which is irrelevant to whether SETI is considered "hard science"? Indeed the new source you added states "Considering the negative search results, the creation of excessive expectations is only grist to the mill of the naysayers-for instance, members of Congress who question the scientific standing of SETI, imputing to it wishful thinking, and denying it financial support. This absolutely negative approach to SETI is certainly wrong, because contrary to the UFO hoax, SETI (as UCLA space scientist Mark Moldwin [2004] stressed in a recent issue of this magazine) is based on solid scientific premises and considerations." You still seem to be conflating the issue of public funding with the issue of the view of SETI as "hard science". This quote rightly points out that while Congress may question the science, scientists do not, although they rightly remain skeptical. Since your quote does not refute the statement "widely viewed by the scientific community as hard science" I am reverting you. You are free to revert, of course, but so far two editors are against your position, and as far as I can tell, you have not a single citation in support of your position. I have opened an RFC in the section below to get an outside opinion. Regards, --C S (talk) 02:35, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

A more detailed response to your last comments: The government directs the flow of scientific largess based on input from many different interests. That this results in some grotesque misallocations in no way invalidates my point that a reduced level of governmental funding indicates a change in the general level of support for SETI. I never said it did. You are the one that argued the stronger point that reduced governmental funding must indicate less support from the scientific community. I pointed out that there are "grotesque misallocations" (that do not indicate the level of scientific support) so arguing based on governmental funding is fallacious. The question is whether it has changed in the scientific community specifically. It surely has, which is probably why public funding dried up. Here you are indeed arguing the stronger point that I pointed out was fallacious. Since there are "grotesque misallocations", how can you argue that less public funding = less scientific support? You are also still confused in claiming that "widely viewed as hard science by the scientific community" is wrong, based on lack of public funding. The science behind the hardware was presumably always considered hard, but the soft science speculations and projections originally justifying the plausibility of SETI's success have apparently coalesced into harder and harder science that compels people to realize that advanced life is arguably much, much rarer than first supposed. So you're saying that SETI is an even harder science that when it started? And this reasoning justifies claiming that the scientific community has various views of SETI as not hard science? The clause "an approach widely viewed by the scientific community as hard science" seems to me still blatantly POV. Why's that? Because you don't think it's hard science? Or you don't think scientists do? Well then, can you find a source for some scientists that claim it's not hard science? The source you added indicates "it is viewed as hard science". But "an approach variously endorsed by the scientific community as hard science" seems to me an acceptable compromise, with the added Skeptical Inquirer footnote link to back it up. Variously endorsed? This indicates that some parts of the scientific community do not think of it as hard science. Which parts? --C S (talk) 02:50, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Radio Signal Destruction Past 2 Light Years Distance?

The History Channel 2008 1-shot "Life After People" (not the 2009 series) production says that SETI scientists have found that the radio signal bubble expanding around earth breaks down pretty rapidly, not even reaching Proxima Centauri in complete form. see:

• Life After People - Part 1 Of 9 (beginning)
• Life After People - Part 9 Of 9 (go to position 05:00)

... does this mean that SETI is pointless? But if radio signals break up, why do visible light images (also made of photons but another frequency) retain their correct structure over billions of light years? --Radical Mallard 11:15 PM EST 5/13/09

Thanks for the interesting links. No, David Brin was not saying that SETI is pointless (at least in that excerpt) or that you cannot detect a signal is of ET origin. What he said was that the idea of a cloud of coherent radio and TV signals and so forth expanding around Earth to the rest of the universe is mistaken. It "dissipates into noise". Probably signal strength is one issue here. Brin actually believes active SETI is dangerous, so I doubt he thinks that all terrestrial signals become harmless noise before it reaches the nearest star. I have no idea what you are talking about images "retain[ing] their correct structure over billions of light years". Even a laser shot out into space will lose coherence after a certain point. Brin's comment was about both radio and TV signals. --C S (talk) 04:10, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Brin believed they were dangerous, but I believe the finding that the signals break up is a new thing that he was not aware of, and he pointed out in the video that it came from SETI itself (which was surprising) ... and by "images" I mean images of stars, galaxies, nebulae, etc. I guess the radio equivalent, however, is a macroscopic radio signal, not a little human-radio-station/tv-station signal example. But are aliens going to send out radio frequency signals the size and shape of whole stars? This new information seems to imply that SETI is a pointless exercise. --Radical Mallard 11:57 AM EST 5/14/09

No, understanding signals break up is not a new thing. We observe this all the time, and there are many people who work in radio and TV whose job description entails trying to minimize this kind of effect. This is basic undergrad engineering, known for much of the 20th century at least. Incidentally, this is also known certainly to any SETI scientist. The new thing, according to what Brin said, are the computations that show that our radio and TV signals in particular will not make it past the nearest star. Again, I don't really know how new this "new thing" really is either. I suspect it's a simple enough calculation, but perhaps nobody was really interested in publishing the details until now. Your comments about signals the "size and shape" of stars, I think, is reflecting a host of misunderstandings. I'm not familiar with SETI or a lot of what they do, but I've seen some SETI papers, and they are all about mitigating the various problems associated with picking out very weak signals among a lot of noise. Indeed, one of the justifications given for SETI is that SETI research has produced some scientific, mathematical, and engineering advancements, so regardless of whether SETI is successful, it has produced and probably will continue to produce useful knowledge. --C S (talk) 16:39, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

No. When I said "the signals break up" I specifically meant the computations Brin specifically mentioned as new. I don't understand why you thought I was saying something else. And also, no, it's not "a host of misunderstandings". An image is information. I came up with an answer to my own question. It's true a human sized image, made up of light-frequency photons, will break up and become unrecognizable from light years away, even with the best telescope... but if the image were the size of a whole galaxy or nebula, it would be recognizable as what it is for quite some distance in space. Similarly, radio and television signals (made up of radio-frequency photons) are so small in geometric scale and so weak in terms of power at their origin that apparently they lose all resolution as information before 2 light years distance. If you had a radio source emitter of the size and scale (and emitted power) of a star, or galaxy, the story would be different. But this does suggest to me that SETI is more of a wild goose chase than was originally thought, and regardless of whatever secondary mathematical progress there has been, it may be time to give up and try to focus more efforts on long term space travel and actually living in space, not to mention creating working and reliable cryogenics and artificial intelligence. --Radical Mallard 4:45 PM EST 5/14/09

Consider a source at 10 light years. An isotropically distributed signal covers an area of 1.1e35 square metres. Arecibo has an area of 7.1e4 sq metres, so samples 6.6e-31 of the total signal area. A quantum of radiation at 100 MHz has energy 6.6e-26J. A Megawatt transmitter emits 1.5e31 quanta per second, so Arecibo would detect 10 quanta per second under ideal conditions. At this sampling rate, information encoded by modulation of the signal is undetectable. So the signal is not "broken up" but the information it carries is. Since the quantum of GHz signals is larger, there are even fewer quanta detectable per second.96.54.53.165 (talk) 17:16, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

RFC on whether the article should state SETI is "widely viewed as hard science by the scientific community"

I'm supposed to place a neutral summary here, but since I don't understand Eye.earth's point, I'll do the best I can. The argument, so far as I understand it, is that the above phrase "widely viewed as hard science by the scientific community" is POV, and should be "variously viewed" or "variously endorsed". This is because Eye.earth claims that the lack of public funding of SETI means that somehow its status as a hard science has diminished. I claim that its perception as a hard science has not diminished, and am justified by the two citations so far in the article (one of which was added by Eye.earth). See the section immediately above for the discussion. --C S (talk) 02:58, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Discussion:

• Why not avoid this whole discussion of "hard science". It seems to me that you are just trying to say that SETI is using "scientific and mathematical methods" to detect other intelligent civilizations. What about this wording
  

The general approach of SETI projects is to use scientific methods tosurvey the sky to detect the existence of transmissions from a civilization on a distant planet – an approach widely viewed by the scientific community as hard science.[1][2] The funded early on by United States Government contributed to SETI early on, but recently work has been primarily funded by private sources. Coffeespoon (talk) 19:26, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

• I would like to modify Coffeespoon's suggestion as follows:

"The general approach of SETI projects is the use of peer-reviewed scientific methods to detect the existence any electromagnetic transmissions from any extraterrestrial civilizations sufficiently advanced to emit them. The United States Government contributed to SETI early on, but recent work has been primarily funded by private sources." Eye.earth (talk) 04:49, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

• Coffeespoon's revision is an improvement. Like Coffeespoon, I think the note about "hard science" is currently a distraction. If there's a compelling reason to keep the phrase "hard science", I think it should surrounded by more context for readers unfamiliar with the lingo. For example, contextualize the phrase by summarizing the Criticism section. (Even still, I don't think the phrase "hard science" helps the article.) The lead consists of two relative short paragraphs at the moment, and these points could help fill it out to be a more complete, concise stand-alone summary of the subject.

With regard to the question I understand the RFC as posing, that is, what association there is (if any) between a research programme's level of public funding and its science "hardness" (i.e. legitimacy): I think editor C.S. is correct to note that lack of financial support from Congress doesn't imply a lack of support from the scientific community. It would be helpful to have references to astronomers and similarly qualified scientists (independent of SETI) showing their opinions on SETI's legitimacy. After a quick scan through the article the only such support seems to come from Mark Moldwin. Of course, it seems questionable to anchor the opinion of the scientific community on one scientist. If other support exists, it should be made more explicit in the article -- e.g., specify exactly who supports SETI. Emw2012 (talk) 05:07, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

• I like the above paragraph by Eye.earth. 'Hard science' doesn't sound like an encyclopaedic term to me (although any scientist will know what it means). The US government have funded some crazy projects and failed to fund some good ones, so that doesn't really demonstrate much. References to comments from respected scientists would be helpful. GyroMagician (talk) 07:22, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
• I think the entry by Eye.earth nails it. I believe that what Eye.earth wrote expresses the idea that you are trying to get across. I think "hard science" should be dropped. Eye.earth has expressed a neutral point of view and got the message across. Ti-30X (talk) 14:32, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
• I would like to modify Eye.earth's suggestion as follows: Kevin Baas^talk 16:21, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

The general approach of SETI projects is the use of peer-reviewed scientific methods to detect the existence any electromagnetic transmissions from any extraterrestrial civilizations sufficiently advanced to emit them. The United States Government contributed to SETI early on, but recent work has been primarily funded by private sources.

• Much better. But detect sounds like SETI regularly find such transmissions. How about this? GyroMagician (talk) 16:48, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

SETI projects use scientific methods to detect search for electromagnetic transmissions from extraterrestrial civilizations sufficiently advanced to emit them. The United States Government contributed to SETI early on, but recent work has been primarily funded by private sources.

I like this better. "search" is much more appropriate, and SETI in fact stands for "Search for Extraterrestrial..." Kevin Baas^talk 17:38, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

• I think deletion of the phrase "peer reviewed" is justified if it means that SETI includes non peer-reviewed projects of sufficient number to color one's impression of the collective effort. Is that indeed the case? If it isn't, then why not leave it in? Eye.earth (talk) 06:35, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

• All scientific work is peer-reviewed. Nobody normally mentions that CERN is a peer-reviewed project, for example, although every scientific publication coming out of CERN most certainly is. I don't think it is necessary here either. GyroMagician (talk) 08:24, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

• As described above, it's not significant. We wouldn't put "Micheal Douglass, who wears shoes, ...". Same applies here. Kevin Baas^talk 15:19, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

• You wouldn't state that Michael Douglas wears shoes, but you might state when he joined the Screen Actors Guild. As for CERN, it's a specific entity funded by 20 European states and has 2,600 full-time employees and almost 8,000 scientists from hundreds of universities and research facilities. SETI is nothing like that. Peer-review is done by peers. Aren't peers specifically veto-empowered coworkers whose input is most active during the pre-publication process? What is considered peer review is surely something formal and potentially very threatening. It can break a career. Can any SETI researcher end the funding and career of another SETI researcher? More specifically, has that ever happened? If not, then we should consider whether SETI is actually peer reviewed. There has been criticism of SETI in general, and that is probably why it is no longer funded by the U.S. gov't. But that's not formal peer review. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eye.earth (talk • contribs) 16:53, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

• I chose CERN as an example of a well-respected scientific institute that most people have heard of. Peer review for scientists usually means that anything we publish is in a (generally anonymously) peer-reviewed journal. I submit my paper to the journal, who will then select 2 or 3 experts in the topic of the paper to read it, decide if it has scientific merit, and check that I didn't just make up a bunch of stuff. The experts are not usually from the same institution. It is quite common to have papers rejected (at least on the first pass). Rejection in itself doesn't harm your career - but a lack of publications does. I don't have to publish in peer reviewed journals, but only PR papers will count towards my publication record. If I start publishing something controversial in non-peer-reviewed journals (without also publishing PRed papers) it would be bad for my reputation and the reputation of my lab, and my boss would probably fire me (bad reputation = no funding). CERN publish all kinds of things, from press releases telling us they've switched on the LHC to scientific papers about what they found. It's only the scientific papers that really count toward their reputation as a science institute. It's the same for SETI. If you look here you'll find a list of authors and their publications - some are 'light' pieces for general consumption, others are serious scientific papers. SETI's scientific reputation is judged only on the PRed papers. I don't know about internal PR. In most fields of science, funding is determined by publications (number and impact factor), which I guess is a form of PR of the lab. As far as I know, veto-empowered coworkers are not common, so I doubt CERN or SETI have such a system (but most of us have a veto-empowered boss!). GyroMagician (talk) 06:42, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

• I took a look at the list of articles and their authors. Many, most, or all of the Principal Investigators don't appear to have done SETI research. I clicked on the names of numerous Principal Investigators and then searched for "SETI" on the page and repeatedly found nothing among their published works. Finally I found one, Margaret Race, who published "Protecting Ourselves Against Mars, SETI Institute News", probably a non-Pr'd piece of journalism. The PI's are real scientists, but their work is at best only indirectly related to SETI's mission. Their work is hard science, but not hard SETI science. (I suspect this association is the source of the "hard science" claim for SETI.) The names that aren't Principal Investigators have written about SETI, but many of articles are journalism for space.com and/or the authors are official members of the SETI group. There is some solid SETI stuff written by them -- I found a hard-core article on programming the Allen telescope -- but not a lot. I vote to leave the phrase out for the reason that I stated above: "I think deletion of the phrase "peer reviewed" is justified if it means that SETI includes non peer-reviewed projects of sufficient number to color one's impression of the collective effort." Eye.earth (talk) 23:19, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

• I think the point is that these are serious scientists, with a peer reviewed publishing history, who also work on the SETI program. It's a bit hard to publish much about ETI itself, because they haven't found any yet (which is not surprising to anyone, and certainly not an indication that there isn't any - just that space is a big place, and the search may be a long one). But at least we agree about the phrasing, if for different reasons. I vote to leave out the phrase "peer reviewed" because it is redundant. I think that gives three of us in agreement so far? GyroMagician (talk) 11:17, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

• Just to summarize the reasoning behind my vote: I vote to leave out the phrase "peer reviewed" because it is redundant with "scientific". Kevin Baas

• My suggested version included the entire phrase "peer-reviewed scientific methods". They arguably go together for something like SETI, because many readers will at least initially read the article with the same kind of skepticism that canceled SETI's public funding. If "peer reviewed" is redundant, what about "scientific methods"? Of course SETI uses scientifc methods. But of course "scientific methods" include (sooner or later) "peer review". If you delete the latter doesn't the former become just as redundant? Really, why not go back to my original suggestion to delete the entire clause, as follows: "The general approach of SETI projects is to survey the sky to detect the existence of transmissions from a civilization on a distant planet. The United States government contributed to SETI early on, but recent work has been primarily funded by private sources." (BTW, it appears that many (all?) of the Principal Investigators listed here haven't actually published anything about SETI. The ones who apparently have are listed here.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eye.earth (talk • contribs) 16:49, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

• I like the phrasing "civilization on a distant planet" better than "from extraterrestrial civilizations sufficiently advanced to emit them". it's simpler and less awkward. Though to match, tense, one would have to put something like "civilizations on distant planets." Kevin Baas^talk 17:54, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

• SETI projects use scientific methods to search for electromagnetic transmissions from civilizations on distant planets.extraterrestrial civilizations sufficiently advanced to emit them. ...

• Another alternative, striking the scientific phrase altogether:

• SETI projects use scientific methods to search for survey the sky in search of electromagnetic transmissions from civilizations on distant planets.extraterrestrial civilizations sufficiently advanced to emit them. ...

• Though a good point was brought up earlier that some ppl are apparently skeptical about the scientific-ness of SETI (why, who knows), so the scientific part should stay in. In any case, still a good example to show how readability can be improved. Kevin Baas^talk 17:54, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Straw poll on wording

We seem to be in agreement that the phrase "widely viewed as hard science by the scientific community" is unneccessary, as noone has suggested it's inclusion for quite some time. But we have, through discussion, made some improvements to the current wording. And I'd like to see what people think is the best, and what would be acceptable to them. I have listed them below. Please rank them 1,2,3... best to worst, or 'no.' if you don't find the version acceptable. feel free to comment next to your vote, and if you vote 'no.' please explain why. Also, there is a question on whether the phrase "peer review" should be included. Please give a brief answer to that. I will start things off.

The general approach of SETI projects is the use of {peer-reviewed} scientific methods to detect the existence any electromagnetic transmissions from any extraterrestrial civilizations sufficiently advanced to emit them. The United States Government contributed to SETI early on, but recent work has been primarily funded by private sources.

• no. for stylistic reasons. too verbose, sentence too long, etc. nothing factually wrong with it, but i think we can improve the prose considerably. Kevin Baas^talk 14:41, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
• no. I don't like the wording. GyroMagician (talk) 16:58, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

SETI projects use {peer-reviewed} scientific methods to search for electromagnetic transmissions from extraterrestrial civilizations sufficiently advanced to emit them. The United States Government contributed to SETI early on, but recent work has been primarily funded by private sources.

• 3. Kevin Baas^talk 14:39, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
• 2. Emw2012 (talk) 16:24, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
• 1. I like the qualifier sufficiently advanced to emit them. We haven't been able to do this for very long. It already makes the reader think about why we may not have found signals from other civilizations. GyroMagician (talk) 16:58, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

SETI projects use {peer-reviewed} scientific methods to search for electromagnetic transmissions from civilizations on distant planets. The United States Government contributed to SETI early on, but recent work has been primarily funded by private sources.

• 1. Clear, concise, and thorough. Kevin Baas^talk 14:39, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
• 1. Per above. I think "on distant plants" could be removed. Also, "Government" should be in lowercase, and "early on" is a bit colloquial. Emw2012 (talk) 16:24, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
• 2. I think this is fine, but prefer the previous option. 'Distant planets' is needed, to emphasise that we're looking into space here. How about The United States Government contributed to earlier SETI projects,...GyroMagician (talk) 16:58, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I must've mentally inserted "extraterrestrial" before "civilizations". I like the phrasing of "earlier SETI projects", and would again note that "Government" should be lowercase. Emw2012 (talk) 22:57, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

'g' not 'G' - yep, you're right, I meant to include that in the modified version ;-) GyroMagician (talk) 07:37, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

SETI projects survey the sky in search of electromagnetic transmissions from civilizations on distant planets. The United States Government contributed to SETI early on, but recent work has been primarily funded by private sources.

• 2. More clear and concise than my first choice, but leaves it too open. (how do they survey the sky? with rocks? telescopes?) Kevin Baas^talk 14:39, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
• 3. Too imprecise. Emw2012 (talk) 16:24, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
• 3. Too imprecise - SETI do more than switch on a telescope and wait, which is not suggested by the above. GyroMagician (talk) 16:58, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Should the phrase "peer reviewed" be included? why or why not?

• no. It is redundant with the word "scientific", and as such adds little to the article, i.e. is not notable. Kevin Baas^talk 14:39, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
• No. Although I don't think "peer-reviewed" and "scientific" are necessarily redundant, I don't think the former is of enough concern here to include it in the language above. Emw2012 (talk) 16:24, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
• no. I think modern scientific method implies peer review, so it's not needed. GyroMagician (talk) 16:58, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be a clear consensus for the third version, so I've changed the intro accordingly. Kevin Baas^talk 17:54, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

An idea

I described an idea for Active SETI, but the idea could be helpful for SETI as well.

For example, putting only TWO planet-sized sun shields arranged in orbit could produce the following sequence of TIME INTERVALS:

1,2,1,2,1,2,...

where the longer interval is nearly precisely two times longer than the shorter interval (i.e., the ratio not 1:2.1, but quite precisely 1:2.000000000), indicating that it is highly unlikely that this ratio 1:2 had occured naturally, suggesting that someone arranged it with the knowledge of of natural numbers.

The confidence about an intelligent civisation could be increased arbitrarily with increasing the precision of the time interval measurement. If that woulnd't give enough confidence, then we could make THREE shields giving precisely the 1:2:3 ratio of time intervals, perhaps giving them sufficient level of confidence that this precise multiples couldn't have occured naturally.

The idea is to: search for very good approximations of ratios of small natural numbers, such as 1 and 2. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.239.86.199 (talk) 23:32, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

revert by Zhang He

I added a link to a copy of the Nature article by Rose and Wright, on Rose's web site. This makes the article accessible to people who do not have a subscription to Nature. User Zhang He reverted my edit, leaving an explanation on my talk page that didn't make sense to me. Possibly this is a misunderstanding. I've left a note on Zhang He's talk page inviting him/her to discuss this here.--75.83.69.196 (talk) 16:49, 3 April 2010 (UTC) Slon02 has done another revert, this one also without any explanation. I've left a message on Slon02's talk page inviting him/her to discuss this here.--75.83.69.196 (talk) 16:59, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

The reason for my revert was that it seemed as though you were adding an advertisement onto Wikipedia, but I didn't notice that you added it to the references section of it. I don't think that the words "free of charge" are completely necessary, and they do sound similar to advertising, but the link itself was not a bad thing. --Slon02 (talk) 17:02, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for admitting that you made a mistake. You might want to be more careful in the future about reading edits before reverting them.--75.83.69.196 (talk) 17:03, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

There are templates for references that can help with this. One normal method is to provide a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) that links to the real archival journal article (and will be maintained by the journal), and then a URL that links to the authors's free web site. This also can specify the journal, date, and so on. I fixed this one and another one in the same paragraph, along with more general fixes. LouScheffer (talk) 01:43, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Looks good -- thanks, LouScheffer!--75.83.69.196 (talk) 19:45, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Infeasible / cover up

I think that one of the most curious aspects of SETI is that its goal is almost impossible to reach. This is because a property of good compression: the compressed signal can hardly/impossibly be distinguished from noise (otherwise a better compression would be possible). This is also the case for good encryption - possibly even more so. I suspect that soon, all transmitted information will be compressed and/or encrypted. This would mean that, all in all, Earth was a source of readable data for not more than a century. Why would that be different for other intelligent civilizations?

Presuming that “aliens” use good compression/encryption techniques, it will be impossible to distinguish their data streams from noise. At the same time, I presume that the mathematicians working for SETI are no fools. If not analyzing impossibly compressed and encrypted data, what are they doing? Curiously, they have a world-wide network, SETI@HOME, in which everybody can participate, sending noisy data to and from its participants. As a participant, you receive some noisy data, partially analyze it, and send some still noisy data back to SETI. Thus, the umbrella of SETI allows to send and receive noisy data to and from all over the world. But … well encrypted data cannot be distinguished from noise ... !! If they aren’t using this idea already, if SETI isn’t kept alive by public funds because of this, it might be a good idea to start using this idea, because the official SETI goals cannot be met. Keekie (talk) 14:33, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Interesting idea. But I think it fails in the assumption that theoretically optimal compression or encryption leads to pure noise. Even in that type of noise a structure must be present, because if it were pure noise, no application would be able to decypher it. It also fails in the presumption that intelligent life-forms would use compression and ecryption techniques (at least all the time). Jan Arkesteijn (talk) 13:37, 7 August 2010 (UTC)