Searching For ET

The modern age question of whether there is "intelligent" life elsewhere in the Universe is being taken seriously now. One of the world's most identified scientists, Stephen Hawking, and and a wealthy business man named Yuri Milner announced a $100 million project to determine if intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe.  Maybe those two should turn on their TV's, read a book or listen to music.  If they did they might search for intelligence first right here on earth.

The 10 year long project is going to be the most comprehensive and intensive search  for extraterrestrial life ever conducted. The searchers will use the the powerful Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and the Parkes Telescope in New South Wales, Australia, to survey the million stars closest to Earth, and will cover 10 times more sky than previous projects, the investigators said.  Hawking is skeptical about finding anything but he does make a good point that, "Somewhere in the cosmos, perhaps, intelligent life may be watching these lights of ours, aware of what they mean." If we are lucky the evil aliens won't attack us because they will have seen reality TV and turned away in disgust.

Hawkings said. "Either way (whether they find any life or not), there is no bigger question. It's time to commit to finding the answer to search for life beyond Earth," he said. We are intelligent. We must know." He's a smart guy and what he said makes sense. Too, I am tired of people claiming "there must be other intelligent life out there", when there has never been any evidence of that. Science should be based on data, not speculation.

The Breakthrough Initiatives, as this enterprise is being called,  said all data from the project will be available to other scientists, who will be able to add to it and develop their own applications to analyze the material. That is bound to both make the study better and to make it more controversial. Surely, some scientists and their backers will get creative with data and make claims that will make the global warming crowd sound rational. It should be fun. Good luck to them, and may any aliens found be peaceful ones.