Breaking: SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) has suspended operations “due to lack of funding”

_{Denyse O'Leary

April 26, 2011

Extraterrestrial life}

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(CNN) — Interstellar radio has lost one of its most avid and high-profile listeners.A collection of sophisticated radio telescopes in California that scan the heavens for extraterrestrial signals has suspended operations because of lack of funding, a spokeswoman said Monday.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute operates the Allen Telescope Array, the field of dish-like scopes some 300 miles north of San Francisco. The telescopes are a joint effort of SETI and University of California-Berkeley’s Radio Astronomy Lab and have been funded largely by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who donated more than $25 million to the project.

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A state budget crisis and reduced federal dollars have choked the project of funding, said Karen Randall, SETI’s director of special projects. SETI put the Allen Telescope Array on hold a week ago — a situation publicly revealed by Franck Marchis, a principal investigator for SETI …

As late as mid-2010: “SETI Institute Announces Public Availability of Radio Telescope Signal Data in Latest Milestone for Director Dr. Jill Tarter’s 2009 TED Prize Wish to Enlist all Earthlings in Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence”

Comments

Bantay, "In other words, we don’t need SETI to know intelligent design is true or even the best explanation." True. ID theorists refer to SETI as an example of a legitimate design inference; but such an example is not predicated upon SETI's success, but merely on its acceptance in the scientific community. If SETI is accepted as a legitimate scientific endeavor, then there is really no recourse for refusing ID, whose scientific validity is reflected along the same lines and under the same rationale as SETI. Now that SETI is being dismantled, the usefulness of the example doesn't disappear.CannuckianYankee_{April 27, 2011
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Correction: Replace UC with UD in my last post, oops.Mapou_{April 26, 2011
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It was all wasted money from the start since advanced aliens have already figured out how to use quantum nonlocality to instantly and securely communicate over vast distances without fear of being detected. Only bozos like us are using EM for communication. It's time that our physicists wake up and realize that space (distance) is an illusion of perception. Don't even get me started on the time dimension concept as I'm liable to go ballistic. And yes, as a Christian, I do believe in the existence of aliens, lots and lots of them, good ones and bad ones. PS. to UC admins: Please take me off moderation. I love UC and I promise to be good.Mapou_{April 26, 2011
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SETI has never been particularly ID friendly. Trying to distance themselves from ID issues, they claim they are instead searching for artificiality, not intelligence. Under the circumstances, I would like to see SETI disappear into historical obscurity. When it does, it can take with it the principle of mediocrity upon which it stands, a principle which has resulted in one of the most blatant cases of mass public groupthink in recent history (that due to the sheer number of stars and planets in the universe, and irrespective of the many necessary parameters that even simple life require to within a miraculous precision), that intelligent life "must" exist somewhere. In other words, we don't need SETI to know intelligent design is true or even the best explanation. There already is sufficient evidence to reasonably suggest design is the best explanation for the link between habitability and scientific observability. And we already have good evidence of non-human, immaterial, intelligent, extra-dimensional life. God is revealed through nature, through personal revelation and through Jesus' resurrection. I find it interesting that there are no claims of "New evidence for chance, undirected natural causes!" or "New evidence of winning the cosmic lottery!", while new claims of evidence for design has increased significantly in the last 100 years. The thinking biologist or astrophysicist would wonder why that is.Bantay_{April 26, 2011
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I think this was inevitable. How long and with how much money can you continue to fund an astronomical "if?" SETI isn't ID in action, Mung, it uses ID methodology to find what very well might not exist. ID in action would be more like actually finding ETI.CannuckianYankee_{April 26, 2011
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I'm not pleased about this. SETI is a prime example of ID in action.Mung_{April 26, 2011
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semi OT neat little quote; “What matters supremely, therefore, is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it — the fact that He knows me. I am graven on the palms of His hands. I am never out of His mind. All my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me." http://dianenoble.wordpress.com/2006/09/22/knowing-and-being-known-by-god/bornagain77_{April 26, 2011
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I like this 'serendipitous' little coincidence that happened at SETI a few years back; SETI - Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence Finds God - Almost http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4007753/ Speaking of serendipity; this is a song from the movie 'Serendipity", with Carl Jung, the famous psychologist who opposed Freud, at the beginning; When You Know - Inspirational Song http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4209342/ notes; Does the Probability for ETI = 1? Excerpt; On the Reasons To Believe website we document that the probability a randomly selected planet would possess all the characteristics intelligent life requires is less than 10^-304. A recent update that will be published with my next book, Hidden Purposes: Why the Universe Is the Way It Is, puts that probability at 10^-1054. http://www.reasons.org/does-probability-eti-1 Linked from "Appendix C" in Why the Universe Is the Way It Is Probability for occurrence of all 816 parameters ? 10^-1333 dependency factors estimate ? 10^324 longevity requirements estimate ? 10^45 Probability for occurrence of all 816 parameters ? 10^-1054 Maximum possible number of life support bodies in observable universe ? 10^22 Thus, less than 1 chance in 10^1032 exists that even one such life-support body would occur anywhere in the universe without invoking divine miracles. http://www.reasons.org/files/compendium/compendium_part3.pdf Hugh Ross - Evidence For Intelligent Design Is Everywhere (10^-1054) - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4347236 "This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent Being. … This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont to be called “Lord God” ??????????? [pantokratòr], or “Universal Ruler”… The Supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect." Sir Isaac Newton - Quoted from what many consider the greatest science masterpiece of all time, "Principia" The Privileged Planet - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV5zkifLSbc Privileged Planet - Observability Correlation - Gonzalez and Richards - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5424431 The very conditions that make Earth hospitable to intelligent life also make it well suited to viewing and analyzing the universe as a whole. - Jay Richardsbornagain77_{April 26, 2011
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Was it that there were things more important than little green men from outer space...or could it be that the truth has finally sunk in? There are only estimated to be 10>23rd exo-planets in the entire universe. That is by orders of magnitude, a much larger number than 500 million estimated exo-planets in our own milky way galaxy. Additionally, there are over 500 parameters which must be met with an exquisite precision for even simple life to exist. By putting together probabilities for only 75 of the known 500 fine tuning features occurring by chance, along with dependency factors, we can calculate the probability of the existence of a planet as life-supportive as Earth. This probability is 1 chance in 10 -99. source: Ross, H. 1998. 'Big Bang Refined by Fire' Consider that the French mathematician, Emile Borel, in his book, "Probabilities and Life" ('62; in chapters 2 &3), explains that any occurrence with a chance of happening that is less than one chance out of 10 to the 50th power, is an occurrence with such a slim probability that it is statistically considered to be indistinguishable from zero. Most mathematicians and scientists have accepted this statistical standard for many purposes. Thus, the probability estimate above shows that earth is, by purely natural means, the only inhabitable planet with life support capability by a factor 49 powers of magnitude less than what is indistinguishable than zero. As such, it is pointless to continue the search for, and to perpetuate the hopeful myth of life on exo-planets.Bantay_{April 26, 2011
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