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Posted 2010-05-10, 03:22 PM
in reply to !King_Amazon!'s post starting "Well most of the idea behind searching..."
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Well most of the idea behind searching for other life, in my eyes, is that if we find other life elsewhere, we find other places which can support life. I definitely think our focus should be on figuring out how we can get at least some of us off of this ball of dirt.
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Interesting. I've never thought about looking for aliens from a utilitarian standpoint before. But if the rationale in looking for aliens is a search for hospitable planets, why spend money on something we've had absolutely no success at so far rather than learning how to terraform a planet, which we might be able to do in small, incremental steps, where each step has some sort of tangible result.
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You're right though, past that there isn't really any value in finding other life, unless it is advanced enough that we can learn from it in some way. But honestly, I think the same could be said about any sort of space exploration, and a lot of science and research in general.
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I think theoretical scientific research, even the research that is not eventually productive, can make a legitimate claim for public money and support. Since science by its nature investigates the unknown, we don't have the foresight to know which fields will be productive and which won't. I think we have to invest across all fields that are considered viable. Something useful will invariably turn up after a while. Seeing as we've had absolutely no success in finding aliens, I don't think the SETI program can make those same claims.
That said, I am, and probably always will be, a SETI supporter.
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