{"id":34601,"date":"2016-04-30T01:00:45","date_gmt":"2016-04-30T05:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=34601"},"modified":"2021-06-27T16:17:57","modified_gmt":"2021-06-27T20:17:57","slug":"qotd-seti-is-a-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2016\/04\/30\/qotd-seti-is-a-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: “SETI is a religion”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cast your minds back to 1960. John F. Kennedy is president, commercial jet airplanes are just appearing, the biggest university mainframes have 12K of memory. And in Green Bank, West Virginia at the new National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a young astrophysicist named Frank Drake runs a two-week project called Ozma, to search for extraterrestrial signals. A signal is received, to great excitement. It turns out to be false, but the excitement remains. In 1960, Drake organizes the first SETI conference, and came up with the now-famous Drake equation: <\/p>\n

N=N*fp ne fl fi fc fL<\/em><\/div>\n

[where N<\/em> is the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy; fp<\/em> is the fraction with planets; ne<\/em> is the number of planets per star capable of supporting life; fl<\/em> is the fraction of planets where life evolves; fi<\/em> is the fraction where intelligent life evolves; and fc<\/em> is the fraction that communicates; and fL<\/em> is the fraction of the planet\u2019s life during which the communicating civilizations live.] <\/p>\n

This serious-looking equation gave SETI a serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses \u2014 just so we\u2019re clear \u2014 are merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be \u201cinformed guesses.\u201d If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It\u2019s simply prejudice. <\/p>\n

As a result, the Drake equation can have any value from \u201cbillions and billions\u201d to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science. I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable hypotheses. The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion. Faith is defined as the firm belief in something for which there is no proof. The belief that the Koran is the word of God is a matter of faith. The belief that God created the universe in seven days is a matter of faith. The belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith. There is not a single shred of evidence for any other life forms, and in forty years of searching, none has been discovered. There is absolutely no evidentiary reason to maintain this belief. SETI is a religion. <\/p>\n

Michael Crichton, “Aliens Cause Global Warming”: the Caltech Michelin Lecture<\/a>, 2003-01-17. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cast your minds back to 1960. John F. Kennedy is president, commercial jet airplanes are just appearing, the biggest university mainframes have 12K of memory. And in Green Bank, West Virginia at the new National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a young astrophysicist named Frank Drake runs a two-week project called Ozma, to search for extraterrestrial signals. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,11,16,44],"tags":[311,454,39,1427],"class_list":["post-34601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-quotations","category-religion","category-science","category-space-science","tag-1960s","tag-astronomy","tag-junkscience","tag-ufos"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-905","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34601"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66793,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34601\/revisions\/66793"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}