Phil - I actually agree with you about needing more data. But you also
like to shoot down any reasonable speculation on how to conduct SETI
while putting in those buzzwords like religion and cult and pontification,
just like the neocons use unpatriotic and traitor whenever someone
dissents from their views.

Say what???

I just want to find them and see what they are really like. And I know you
hate this fact, but it's a damn big Universe with a lot of stars and planets out
there which we've barely explored, so I think I'll go out on a wild limb and
say that there's probably more than just us out there. They are probably
nothing like us and may not even be anywhere near us on the evolutionary
scale, but the odds are good that they at least exist. It isn't very scientific
to assume they don't exist simply because they aren't dancing at our door.

How about if you don't like even the latest SETI paradigms that you come up
with a search plan or two of your own? I won't shoot you down for speculating.

I keep thinking you have a better idea up your sleeve. If so, then please share
it so we can find those beings out there sooner rather than later.

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You apparently don't like it, but the fact is that some proponents of the yet-not-happened behave just the same as religious fanatics. They get easily offended and all emotional at any criticism. Their outlook of the future must be accepted and is not to be questioned with skepticism as I did. The behaviour speaks for itself.

What 'reasonable speculation' was shot down? All I've read here so far are articles full of self-aggrandizing bloviation about 'New Paradigms' without any real concrete examples or search proposals. And articles with snarky insults denigrating ongoing investigations as 'Old SETI' while the new enlightened folk have no specifics for peer review. I may not think that the old SETI serches have much of a shot, but I've contributed to Paul Horowitz's microwave and optical efforts on the outside chance that there might be low hanging fruit.

It's up to the chattering proponents of the so-called new paradigms to propose concrete examples that can be investigated via observation programs. All I've read so far is rehashed decades old stuff like searching for Dyson Spheres via IR, which was and is a good idea. So far those apocryphal Type II and Type III civilizations have not shown up. I gather that any speculation that maybe they just don't exist is just not PC.

Me, I can't wait for the unveiling of new paradigm specifics and their searches to begin. I hope that they are ready for the type of commentary they've prematurely directed at today's experimental observers.