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Posts Tagged “

seti

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aliens

Failure of the Planet of the Apes Hypothesis

Charley Lineweaver, a scientist with the SETI Institute, argued today that pure human vanity, not scientific evidence, leads us to believe that if humans were wiped off the face of the Earth some other species (probably an ape of some kind) would rise to fill the "intelligence niche" that we Homo sapiens currently occupy. He calls this the "Planet of the Apes hypothesis," and believes that life here on Earth has already shown it to be false. That means the way we're searching for extra-terrestrial life — or even the act of searching itself — is terribly misguided. More »

1:40 PM on Thu Apr 17 2008
By Michael Reilly
4,943 views, 36 comments

Latest by Spiral: I may have missed someone else say this, so I apologize if they did. So SETI would stop doing actual work because a new theory says they might be wrong? I find that a poor reason to stop searching. "Billy, your more »

astrobiology

Future SETI: Looking for Alien Lasers, Gravity Waves

If you've ever seen the movie Contact, you'll know the alien-hunter stereotype: quirky, visionary loners who sit up all night listening to static, hoping for the signal that will change the world. That's probably not far off from real life, except that SETI (that's Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) scientists are getting creative. Here at the Astrobiology Science Conference, 2008, they're presenting new ways of looking for little green men, including watching for signs of alien lasers, infrared signals, and even gravity waves.
More »

9:30 AM on Thu Apr 17 2008
By Michael Reilly
1,243 views, 6 comments

Latest by n/a: LIGO (funded by the National Science Foundation), as well as other worldwide gravitational wave projects, is actively engaged in a scientific endeavor to search for the gravitational waves predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity. We look for gravitationalwaves from more »