Comments on: Searching for intelligence, here and abroad

By: Martin Rensner

Martin Rensner — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 09:46:51 +0000

Of course he wasn't supporting some kind of nazi eugenics scheme or anything so he wasn't technically a racist but as you and Dougal both agree he was certainly making some uncomfortable generalisations. I can forgive my fat grandfather making remarks like that when he gets pissed (because I don't like him anyway) but a public speaker should be a little more careful methinks. If he wants to compromise himself and therefore his cause that's up to him I guess!

I think SETI is one of those instances where science is like sex. It has a practical purpose, but that’s not why people do it…

Well if he wants to have sex with aliens that's fine, but I'm not paying for it.

By: Dougal

Dougal — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:26:50 +0000

I believe, over the course of the evening he referred to a “Jewish meeting” (I think it was meeting; it was a phrase I’d never heard before anyway), “pygmies” (I don’t know if he meant people or animals at that point), short Japanese people and “crazy Russians”. I think that was it but there may be more. No racism but he definitely gave an impression of not liking Johnny Foreigner.

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:29:11 +0000

I think what he actually said was that “people from the tenements” wouldn’t want their money going to SETI. I’d also disagree that he said anything outright racist (unless I’ve forgotten one)… there were a few badly thought out comments, though.

I think SETI is one of those instances where science is like sex. It has a practical purpose, but that’s not why people do it…

By: Martin Rensner

Martin Rensner — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:02:35 +0000

I don't agree that the side effects of funding SETI should be celebrated. Surely it just suggests that we should be funding the useful things directly? SETI should be the ones tagging along behind waiting for the technology to suit their purpose not the other way round.

Standing in a field at night pointing a torch up at the night sky is a fruitless activity even if you do keep saving up and blowing your cash on a new, bigger torch. Invest in giant AI torch technology and you can come back to alien hunting later! Glib I know, but you get the idea.

Anyway he didn't help his cause by making four racist comments and saying that the "people from the tenements" should give their money to SETI. Yikes is all I'm saying.

By: Dougal

Dougal — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:17:22 +0000

SETI funding has side effects anyway, the money spent on radio telescope time subsidises these things that are used in perhaps more directly useful ways - and the data collected by SETI is useful for other purposes.

Strangely enough this guy seemed to reckon that neither of these were the case --- that no-one was willing to pay for SETI data gathering because it was otherwise useless, and that existent data was just as hard to repurpose for searching for aliens.

By: Robert Hulme

Robert Hulme — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 19:55:58 +0000

I think the comparison with Nessie is rather unfair. We know how to look for creatures living in Lochs - we've looked, and there isn't anything there. If life exists beyond our planet it's probably quite hard to detect - we're not entirely sure how to do it (but we have some ideas), and doing it is very hard. SETI's mission has only just begun, whereas the search for Nessie is basically over.

The existence of Nessie would be interesting, but would have relatively little impact on our understanding of various scientific disciplines or society as a whole. The discovery of an alien civilisation would have wide reaching and serious implications.

SETI funding has side effects anyway, the money spent on radio telescope time subsidises these things that are used in perhaps more directly useful ways - and the data collected by SETI is useful for other purposes.