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Chapter 4: Aliens

#136: Feb. - Mar. 2015 (Non-Fiction)
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Chris OConnor

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Chapter 4: Aliens

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Chapter 4: Aliens

Please use this thread to discuss Chapter 4: Aliens.

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Re: Chapter 4: Aliens

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Well, never having been particularly interested in UFOs or Aliens, although I love a good science fiction novel now and again, I didn't find this chapter particularly edifying.

I love crop circles - they are an artform in their own right. I haven't ever seen one in real life, as I guess one would need to be in an aircraft to see them properly. But aren't they beautiful?

https://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&s ... UyWdXsiHOk

We did, however, see the space debris re-entering the earth's atmosphere, when we were driving back from my son's house in the south of England a couple of years ago. It was a good example of misinterpretation of facts as both my husband and I thought the lights looked to be a couple of miles away in the sky, and in fact, they were hundreds of miles away. Amazing though....and people did think they were meteorites, not alien spacecraft you will notice:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19683687
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Re: Chapter 4: Aliens

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I have one firm objection about the content of this chapter:

Franz Mesmer and the saga known as "mesmerism" do not belong here.

It is really a very unfair thing for Sagan to have done. It's an extremely cursory treatment of Mesmer's story.
Sagan's usage of Mesmerism as nothing more than an example of pernicious beliefs run amok is a very anemic analysis.

Although I support Sagan's desire to share critical thinking skills, this is an example of a scientist giving a terrible history lesson, yet again.
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Re: Chapter 4: Aliens

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By the way;

So far I have to say after four chapters I am a bit disappointed.
Maybe I am being too hard on Sagan. I dont know.
Maybe this isnt the Sagan book that I personally would find most engaging.
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Re: Chapter 4: Aliens

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Thought/Question:

Why is SETI not psuedoscience?

There is no evidence that intelligent life exists in the universe.

There is no evidence that alien life is capable of understanding radio wave frequency signals.

There is no evidence that intelligent civilizations would be detectable by us for similar or the same reasons that our civilization should be detectable.

If the scientific method justifies the search for alien life, how is it able to be falsified?

This seems to be scientists, specifically Sagan here, unabashedly adopting Pascal's Wager.
Last edited by ant on Mon Jan 26, 2015 12:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Chapter 4: Aliens

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ant wrote:Thought/Question:

Why is SETI not psuedoscience?

There is no evidence that intelligent life exists in the universe.

There is no evidence that alien life is capable of understanding radio wave frequency signals.

There is no evidence that intelligent civilizations would be detectable by us for similar or the same reasons that our civilization should be detectable.

If the scientific method justifies the search for alien life, how is it able to be falsified?

This seems to be scientists, specifically Sagan here, unabashedly adopting Pascal's Wager.
It's a valid proposition that intelligent life may exist and that such life might be emitting radio signals that can be detected by radio telescopes. As such, the SETI project is a relatively simple experiment that could potentially yield an amazing discovery—evidence of alien intelligence.

Granted, it's a shot in the dark. But still very much a scientific experiment, akin to sending the Mars Rover to Mars to search for evidence of microbes in the soil. There's no evidence that such microbes exist, but we can still look.
-Geo
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Re: Chapter 4: Aliens

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ant wrote:

By the way;

So far I have to say after four chapters I am a bit disappointed.
Maybe I am being too hard on Sagan. I dont know.
Maybe this isnt the Sagan book that I personally would find most engaging.
I think that there is too much emphasis on alien abduction, so far. My excuse for Sagan is that he is an astro-physicist.

I thought Richard Dawkins was much more dynamic - The God Delusion. That book really changed my attitudes and challenged my belief system, whereas Sagan is more into aliens and space - about which my feelings are indifferent or arbitrary. Still, the point for me is that I am reading a book which I would never read otherwise, and I can still find things to talk about because I am such an opinionated woman. I have an opinion about absolutely everything........ :P
Only those become weary of angling who bring nothing to it but the idea of catching fish.

He was born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world is mad....

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Re: Chapter 4: Aliens

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geo wrote:
ant wrote:Thought/Question:

Why is SETI not psuedoscience?

There is no evidence that intelligent life exists in the universe.

There is no evidence that alien life is capable of understanding radio wave frequency signals.

There is no evidence that intelligent civilizations would be detectable by us for similar or the same reasons that our civilization should be detectable.

If the scientific method justifies the search for alien life, how is it able to be falsified?

This seems to be scientists, specifically Sagan here, unabashedly adopting Pascal's Wager.
It's a valid proposition that intelligent life may exist and that such life might be emitting radio signals that can be detected by radio telescopes. As such, the SETI project is a relatively simple experiment that could potentially yield an amazing discovery—evidence of alien intelligence.

Granted, it's a shot in the dark. But still very much a scientific experiment, akin to sending the Mars Rover to Mars to search for evidence of microbes in the soil. There's no evidence that such microbes exist, but we can still look.
These comments do not really address my questions.

Why is the expectation that radio signals should be recognizable by alien civilizations?

"Mights" and "maybes" go so far. At what point do you need more tangible evidence to distinguish this from pseudoscience, after which you move on to more practical things, like, say, "detecting" just how many people are starving on our planet and what science can do about it?


A shot in the dark?
I thought we had the scientific method to illuminate darkness?
How effective has the scientific method been for SETI?


I for one support our search for ET.
But still.., SETI is Sagan's pet. At this point it very much is Sagan's Wager - ("hey, what have we got to lose here?")
Last edited by ant on Mon Jan 26, 2015 10:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Chapter 4: Aliens

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Penelope wrote:
ant wrote:

By the way;

So far I have to say after four chapters I am a bit disappointed.
Maybe I am being too hard on Sagan. I dont know.
Maybe this isnt the Sagan book that I personally would find most engaging.
I think that there is too much emphasis on alien abduction, so far. My excuse for Sagan is that he is an astro-physicist.

I thought Richard Dawkins was much more dynamic - The God Delusion. That book really changed my attitudes and challenged my belief system, whereas Sagan is more into aliens and space - about which my feelings are indifferent or arbitrary. Still, the point for me is that I am reading a book which I would never read otherwise, and I can still find things to talk about because I am such an opinionated woman. I have an opinion about absolutely everything........ :P

I think you're making some great comments.
It's great to have many different opinions and perspectives. :)
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Re: Chapter 4: Aliens

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If there's any controversy about SETI, it seems to be about how we should best use our resources, not whether sending out probes for intelligent life is a scientific endeavor. Even looking into the possible basis for astrology can be a scientific project. It's been done, in fact. We're talking about pseudoscience when there are unproven assumptions employed--not "could be's" as with SETI, but assertions about reality such as homeopathic medicine uses. The valid argument would be whether, given the lack of results for SETI, it's worth our money to continue, when we could spend it on less speculative science. The amount of money being spent is relatively tiny, so my opinion would be that SETI is worthwhile.

Didn't I hear that Stephen Hawking doesn't think we should be looking for other intelligent life? If we draw attention to ourselves, we might be visited by an intelligent race that can't even fathom why our existence should be valued more than we value the existence of cockroaches.
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