I have written before here and here about the search for earth like planets orbiting stars in our galaxy and others, and many of you already know about SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence programs to “listen” for signs of extraterrestrial civilizations. Apparently, according to this article at the UK Daily Mail, the boffins have begun a new program called Active SETI or METI where instead of just listening for signs of neighboring civilizations, signals are actively sent out at high power toward likely targets in an attempt to establish communication with any civilizations that may be within “earshot”. (“boffins” are “experts”. I have always wanted to use that word and couldn’t pass up the chance)
Not all scientists think this is such a great idea. According to the article:
“Not all scientists are sanguine about this, however. One has even called it ‘insanely risky, given the dearth of information we have about the nature of Extra-terrestrial Intelligence’.
John Billingham, a senior figure at SETI and Nasa, even called for a global moratorium on such programmes because of the potential risk to humanity’s future.”
To be calling for a note of caution seems reasonable given the fact that we essentially don’t know a darn thing about the universe around us. Is it all rainbows and unicorns? Or might there be snakes in the grass? Of course our scientists operate on the assumption that since we mean no harm, that any contactees would interact with us in a peaceful way, or that if there are advanced civilizations then they would have evolved past any agressive or warlike tendencies. But that is simply guessing and is just as likely guessing wrong as guessing right. It is completely possible that we live in a very dangerous neighborhood, and calling attention to our presence might be ill-advised.
What is most likely correct is that whatever or whoever we find will be so fundamentally different from us that we will have no way of understanding their logic, emotions or morals if they indeed have any at all. They might just be very hungry and we might look very tasty. We cannot assume that we will always be the apex predator.
I am fond of saying the fact that I am paranoid does not mean no one’s out to get me. So I would also like to tell these scientists: just because you are not paranoid, that also does not mean no one’s out to get you. Let’s err on the side of caution here.
Cross posted at Men Out of Work Blog