Can SETI succeed because of Kepler?

With the Kepler satellite launch just a few days away, Earth-like planets might soon become mundane (depending on the abundance).

If Kepler is in fact very successful and finds hundreds of Earth-like planets, should SETI keep their search focused on those planets exclusively? or should they keep operating in a manner as to search as much of the sky as possible?

Just because a planet is Earth like in no way says that it would have a high order civilization emitting radio waves. So I'd have to go for the second option. Although I'm pretty sure Seti has received numerous signals and been hushe up by the powers that be.

Well if we assume that Earth-like planets eventually produce life, then the search is narrowed by a factor of millions.

Why would you assume any such thing? Assumptions have little place in science. I personally think that Seti is a scam. Keep the sheep thinking that you're looking for something that has been here all along.

Originally posted by Zenagain
Why would you assume any such thing? Assumptions have little place in science. I personally think that Seti is a scam. Keep the sheep thinking that you're looking for something that has been here all along.

Isn't evolution all about assumptions?

Seriously though, what happens if we do find a radio signal from another civilization?

I think mr. Shostak's efforts are genuine. Why would they spend all that money for no reason?

Our planet produced life so I'm comfortable assuming others will. Plus don't forget our planet went through many extinctions and always came away producing yet more complex life.

Lannock:

Here's a link explaining that:

www.youtube.com...

[edit on 2-3-2009 by FortyTwo]

Originally posted by Lannock

Originally posted by Zenagain
Why would you assume any such thing? Assumptions have little place in science. I personally think that Seti is a scam. Keep the sheep thinking that you're looking for something that has been here all along.

Isn't evolution all about assumptions?

Seriously though, what happens if we do find a radio signal from another civilization?

I don't recall discussing evolution in this thread? Point me to that part?? As to the second part? Exactlly what has happened. You'll never know about it.

Yes, the focus should be set more on newly discovered (in the future) Earth-like planets. They could easily contain "life as we know it".... though we're out of luck if it's in the stone ages or not intelligent. SETI should still look at other targets too, but the focus should be on likely candidates. There may be life out there around other stars that we wouldn't expect, but that would be harder to find because it may not be life as we know it. We just wouldn't know where to look because we wouldn't know what to look for in the first place. So we probably have a better chance of trying to find life around Earth-like planets. It can't hurt to have a few random searches of other stars here and there though.


[edit on 3-3-2009 by GrayFox]

Who funds SETI? is it goverment, military or private corporations? i wonder sometimes, because SETI has been active for quite some time and no significant results yet. Or maybe they are just a front for some other black project?

Well I know of one person who funded a lot of money. Paul Allen co-founder of Microsoft, Hence the Allen telescope array that is being built. The Govt. stopped funding them some years ago. I don't know why this is such an enigma to people, it's just a bunch of astronomers with a desire to make contact. Heck if I was a millionare I would probably throw them a few thousand.

Anyways mr.Shostak isn't the only person in the world conducting a SETI experiment, if he doesn't pay close attention to the Kepler results I'm sure someone in another country will.

Originally posted by teklordz
Who funds SETI? is it goverment, military or private corporations? i wonder sometimes, because SETI has been active for quite some time and no significant results yet. Or maybe they are just a front for some other black project?

SETI was government run but I don't believe it is anymore... it was set up not to find signs of life on other planets..... but to prove life doesn't exist on other planets.

Remember to these guys absence of proof is proof of absence.... I've seen Shostak on various shows trying to discredit UFO's based on nothing more than "We've found nothing so it can't be real".

SETI is a complete and utter waste of time.

SETI has been active for quite some time and no significant results yet

not really the ATA-42 only came online last year. SETI has only searched 2000 stars the ATA will search 1million within 10 years if they can reach 350 dishes.

The stars kepler will look at are between 300- 1000 light years away. We would need the ATA-350 to search those with decent sensitivity.

The best we can do with the ATA-42 is detect an Aceribo sized radar 300ly away. kepler will give us usefull targets for future seti searches but remember kepler wont give us any candidates planets for 4 years

[edit on 3-3-2009 by yeti101]

I agree that SETI and the ufo community don't get along, which is sad because their goal is the same, but to say SETI is a waste of time is ignorant. With Kepler launching in a few days we may be on the cusp of finding ourselves very commonplace, and what better way to find out if theres anyone home by doing actual science? following leads about a ufo story is fine, and listening with telescopes is worthy aswell.

I don't know why people are completely surprised that SETI hasn't found hundreds of civilizations. Sure, it's a little weird that they haven't found anything, but it's not that hard to believe. Our technology really isn't THAT advanced. But as technology develops, I think we'll be finally finding some stuff!

Also, there's always a chance that they've found stuff and didn't even recognize it. There have been a few anomalous signals discovered, after all. And SETI has helped make some astronomy-related discoveries. So it is not a waste. Doing something is better than nothing.

Originally posted by Zenagain

Originally posted by Lannock

Originally posted by Zenagain
Why would you assume any such thing? Assumptions have little place in science. I personally think that Seti is a scam. Keep the sheep thinking that you're looking for something that has been here all along.

Isn't evolution all about assumptions?

Seriously though, what happens if we do find a radio signal from another civilization?

I don't recall discussing evolution in this thread? Point me to that part?? As to the second part? Exactlly what has happened. You'll never know about it.

Boy is someone touchy about evolution

Read my post again and you can see I'm kidding about the evolution part.

If it's true that we'll never know about it, doesn't it make this thread kinda pointless then?

I still would like an answer to my question. What DO we do once it has been confirmed that 100s or even 1000s of lightyears away there is another civilization sending out radio waves? Send them a message? Pretty pointless since my great-great-grandkids will be dead before we get a response.

Just knowing there are others is reward enough. It would certainly give more credibility to the ufo crowd.

Originally posted by Lannock
I still would like an answer to my question. What DO we do once it has been confirmed that 100s or even 1000s of lightyears away there is another civilization sending out radio waves? Send them a message? Pretty pointless since my great-great-grandkids will be dead before we get a response.

And then perhaps we eventually find a closer civilization somewhere down the line. Maybe one close enough for reasonable communication of some sort. Or maybe we'd discover a civilization that is responsible for some UFOs. Maybe, at least. Who knows? It's not a guarantee, but it's a possibility. Either way, just knowing we've finally found another civilization would be amazing.

[edit on 3-3-2009 by GrayFox]