A friend wonders how SETI would know if a signal comes from an intelligent source. Can’t nature just produce intelligence via natural selection acting on random mutations? Well, don’t they use the same criteria for detecting intelligence as ID? From SETI@home, criteria such as narrow-band, pulsed radio patterns, that intelligent intention easily explains but natural causes would not: If our stellar friends are trying to put actual information on their signal (very likely), the signal will almost certainly be pulsed. We’ll be looking for this too. He also found us this, from Evolution News & Views, answering a reader’s query about “methodological naturalism”*: Epistemology — how we know — and ontology — what exists — are both affected by methodological … Continue reading SETI as sci-fi’s ID?