Re:There Probably Have Been Aliens
by logfromblammo on Monday January 23, 2017 @01:17PM
(#13464394)
If an alien civilization existed, but we can never find any evidence of it existing, does it still count?
The speculation is moot as long as the record of evidence cannot support within a reasonable confidence interval that only one or more alien civilizations could have produced it.
Guessing with the Drake equation only helps to determine just how much time and funding you would like to provide to projects like SETI, that actually watch for and listen for evidence that would refute the null hypothesis (viz. no civilizations anywhere outside of Sol System).
All the article really says is that if SETI has enough resources to watch the entire sky at maximum resolution for an infinite timespan, it will eventually find something. But I'm certainly not going to sink that much time and money into it. I'd rather put that money into generation ships, sleeper ships, robotic seed ships, permanent space habitats, or some combination thereof.
The speculation is moot as long as the record of evidence cannot support within a reasonable confidence interval that only one or more alien civilizations could have produced it.
Guessing with the Drake equation only helps to determine just how much time and funding you would like to provide to projects like SETI, that actually watch for and listen for evidence that would refute the null hypothesis (viz. no civilizations anywhere outside of Sol System).
All the article really says is that if SETI has enough resources to watch the entire sky at maximum resolution for an infinite timespan, it will eventually find something. But I'm certainly not going to sink that much time and money into it. I'd rather put that money into generation ships, sleeper ships, robotic seed ships, permanent space habitats, or some combination thereof.