Has SETI Been Barking Up The Wrong Tree (Mostly)?

Pasadena CA (SPX) Aug 07, 2006

In several recent articles, defenders of the conventional SETI projects, as exemplified by the activities of the SETI Institute and other radio/occassionally optical searches, have argued-perhaps preparing the grounds for the 50th anniversary of OZMA-that in spite of all budget cuts and occassional criticism, both scientific and extra-scientific, SETI is alive and healthy as ever.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Has_Seti_Been_Barking_Up_The_Wrong_Tree_Mostly_999.html

To quote:

Is there any other field in science so unresponsive to new and important developments? For example, Rose and Wright publish a seminal paper in 2004 on the efficiency of inscribed matter information transfer; does this provoke a massive debate in SETI circles, as any objective bystander would naturally expect?

If it did, it was for all purposes invisible. Such lack of response to new issues characterizes usually only pseudosciences, like astrology or ufology. True science has to response quickly and critically to any such challenge. In general, SETI is mostly in the same shape - and with the same set of philosophical, methodological and technological guidelines - as it was in the time of its pioneers (Drake, Sagan, Morrison, Shklovsky, Bracewell) in 1960s and 1970s.

In contrast, our views of astrophysics, biology, and especially, computer science - arguably the three key scientific disciplines for SETI - changed revolutionarily since that epoch, to put it mildly. Also, some of our epistemological and methodological guidelines pertaining to life and intelligence have also changed.