'The time of SETI has coincided with the UFO era, and SETI researchers have constantly tried to keep their work distinct from those investigating Roswell and Area 51. Part of that effort is straightforward—the astronomers and physicists involved don’t take UFO stories seriously.'
SETI politics
by Gregory Anderson
SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, has a fundamentally fascinating hypothesis. Not only do SETI researchers assume extraterrestrial life exists, which most mainstream scientists now take as a given, but they further theorize extraterrestrial civilizations exist that can be detected from Earth. Since about 1960, a handful of SETI researchers have tested that hypothesis by scanning the heavens using radio telescopes and increasingly powerful, sophisticated search programs. Optical SETI, looking for ET laser pulses, is now beginning. The political situation of the times, however, has pushed those interested in SETI into a narrow philosophical position.
Most humans want their life’s work to be something respectable, especially to friends and close associates, and SETI researchers are no different. Unfortunately for them, SETI has not always been respected by the scientific community at large, and certainly not by Congress. NASA started a modest SETI program in 1992, but Congress quickly shut it down. Since then, American SETI programs have been university-funded, or funded through private donations. The SETI community has been trying to establish the credibility of its chosen field ever since.
Perhaps logically, the time of SETI has coincided with the UFO era, and SETI researchers have constantly tried to keep their work distinct from those investigating Roswell and Area 51. Part of that effort is straightforward—the astronomers and physicists involved don’t take UFO stories seriously. Part of it, however, is about respectability. SETI researchers are convinced theirs is the way to find sentient life among the stars, and they want to pursue their work without being called crackpots. Research requires funding, and funding demands a certain level of respectability.
Getting money and striving for respect, however, seems to have put SETI researchers like Seth Shostak and Jill Tarter in a box. To justify continuing SETI work, they must argue that the existence of advanced technological civilizations elsewhere in the Milky Way, given what modern science knows, is perfectly possible. On the other hand, however, largely to build the respectability of their efforts, they also argue that interstellar travel is so difficult, and will always remain so, that no civilization will ever master it. That stance accomplishes two objectives. First, it dismisses the idea that UFOs might be interstellar craft. Second, it enshrines SETI—their passion—as the only way to ever answer the question: Are we alone?
Nothing in human history, however, suggests there is a plateau that civilization, science, and technology can reach but never go beyond. Indeed, though human civilization is still young, the sweep of history could be taken to argue exactly the opposite.
Is interstellar flight impossible? Not theoretically. Humans have already come up with various, seemingly workable, starship designs. Given enough time, human migration to the stars will likely be at least possible. Whether it ever happens is another matter. Dr. Shostak argues that interstellar travel will always be so expensive that societies will always elect to explore deep space through some version of SETI—by communicating through radio transmission or other long-distance means with other civilizations. Scientific research, Shostak seems to assume, will be the only driver of interstellar travel, and will never command the resources in any society to mount such daunting missions.
Both those assumptions are open to question. First, any civilization in a position to seriously consider interstellar flight will be fabulously wealthy—quite literally, wealthy beyond any human imagination. A society that wealthy may well have an incredibly large budget, and taste, for scientific knowledge; after all material needs are met, new ideas and new physical vistas might be the point of life. Second, if human history is any guide, there will be more than one reason to go to the stars. Scientific research may be one. After all, by the argument of the SETI researchers, those solar systems without transmitting civilizations will be black holes otherwise. Long-term economics and trade may be another driver; establishing English colonies in North America led to extraordinary economic advances over 300-odd years, and a civilization on the edge of interstellar flight could easily consider such time frames in its policy. There may also be political reasons, philosophical reasons, and reasons related to survival. Making one’s species immortal by establishing it in more than one solar system could be the ultimate expression of evolution’s survival drive.
By rejecting the possibility of interstellar migration, SETI researchers might be ruling out the best scenario for the success of their own enterprise. To be successful, humans must be doing SETI at the same time others are transmitting. Postulating unrelated species exchanging information and chattering away makes SETI a crapshoot. Postulating regular communication among related civilizations in several star systems makes a successful SETI effort not only more likely—it makes the effort more defensible. That, of course, would mean embracing interstellar flight as a possibility. Whether SETI researchers are prepared to open themselves to cracks about Little Green Men zipping through spacetime in flying saucers is an open question.
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Gregory Anderson is a freelance writer and a graduate of Ball State University. He is a member of both The Planetary Society and the National Space Society.
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Letter: response to “SETI politics” (Skeptical on UFOs)
by Seth Shostak
Monday, September 12, 2005
While I am gratified that Gregory Anderson has addressed the matter of “SETI politics” in his recent article (see “SETI politics”, The Space Review, September 6, 2005), I believe that some of his facts are wrong and his arguments skewed.
His take on the respectability of SETI in the scientific community is unduly pessimistic. While there are certainly individual scientists who are doubtful about the chances of a SETI detection, SETI has been specifically called out as a legitimate and worthy endeavor by the astronomical community in decadal reviews. This is an endorsement of considerable weight. Anderson also writes—erroneously—that “NASA started a modest SETI program in 1992,” but in fact the NASA SETI program dates from the mid-1970s. It was a long-term, but modest program that developed both observing strategies and the requisite technology.
I’m not quite sure what the point is, but Anderson writes “Perhaps logically, the time of SETI has coincided with the UFO era…” This may be true if one speaks of geological time, but Roswell (the only UFO incident named by Anderson) was 1947, and the first SETI observations were a dozen years later.
These are all technical nits. Of greater consequence is Mr. Anderson’s mis-characterization of my opinion on interstellar travel, on which he writes “Shostak argues that interstellar travel will always be so expensive that societies will always elect to explore deep space through some version of SETI.” This is not my view at all. I have no idea whether interstellar travel for exploration will happen sooner or later, but I’m rather optimistic that it will eventually happen. I think that interstellar travel for biological beings is a long shot frankly, but if you’re either willing to send telesensing apparatus, or just spend a long time getting there, then going to the stars is possible, and at some level of technology, feasible.
I think, however, it is worth noting that our ability to build good telesensing equipment is far outpacing our efforts at making enormously faster rockets. Ergo, I suspect that we will send equipment, rather than ourselves, for any direct interstellar exploration. That’s my view of things. Mr. Anderson thinks otherwise, noting for example that “Long-term economics and trade may be another driver [for interstellar travel]; establishing English colonies in North America led to extraordinary economic advances…” I respectfully point out that such examples all involved members of the same species, and even then, “trade” was not the driver. The Europeans did not wish to trade with the Aztecs (what did the Aztecs import?) but merely put them to work in silver mines. And the Mesoamerican cultures are estimated to have been only 500 years behind their European counterparts in terms of technical development. The difference between interstellar societies will be far greater.
Mr. Anderson’s true agenda is to plead that SETI researchers should be accepting of “Little Green Men zipping through spacetime in flying saucers.” I would be happy to accept this idea if there were only convincing proof. When discussing alien UFOs, it is a common canard to argue that the SETI community’s skepticism is simply due to their failure to be open to the idea. That’s wrong. Their skepticism is rooted in the lack of good evidence.
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Dr. Seth Shostak is the Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute.