From: Darin Sunley (rsunley@escape.ca)
Date: Wed Jul 07 1999 - 19:19:40 MDT
You forget, negative results count in science too. Even if Seti@Home
firmly establishes that all the radio noise on whatever frequencies
they're scanning is meaningless noise, this at least gives us some firm
lower bounds regarding the probable distribution of technological
civilizations.
I personally doubt they'll find anything. The timescales involved are too
great for it to be likely that there's anything within a million years of
us in this half of the galaxy. But the only reason I have to think that
is a moderately pessimistic intuit of some of the terms of the Drake
equation. Hard numbers are NEVER a bad thing, especially when they can be
obtained at negligible cost, like what Seti@Home is doing.
It's probably a good idea to try to work out, in a quantitative way, just
how nervous the Great Filter Paradox should be making us. :)
Whistling in the dark...
Darin Sunley
rsunley@escape.ca
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