[NotReady]

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SETI isn't a scientific theory. It's a search.


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It must claim to be based on science. If not, it should be funded by artistic foundations, not scientific ones.

The crux of the argument from the site you linked is:

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In short, the champions of Intelligent Design make two mistakes when they claim that the SETI enterprise is logically similar to their own: First, they assume that we are looking for messages, and judging our discovery on the basis of message content, whether understood or not. In fact, we’re on the lookout for very simple signals. That’s mostly a technical misunderstanding. But their second assumption, derived from the first, that complexity would imply intelligence, is also wrong. We seek artificiality, which is an organized and optimized signal coming from an astronomical environment from which neither it nor anything like it is either expected or observed: Very modest complexity, found out of context. This is clearly nothing like looking at DNA’s chemical makeup and deducing the work of a supernatural biochemist.


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Error number one isn't made by anyone I've read or anything I've thought. I've always thought the search was made based on any sign of intelligence. For instance, our own TV signals, though not sent as a message, would enable ETs to infer we are here.

Error number two is also not part of my understanding of SETI. I don't think of it as looking for compexity, but artificiality.

The whole article is just an attempt to define terms in such a way that SETI is scientific and ID isn't. It draws artificial distinctions and focuses on differences, ignoring similarities. Much turns on the definition of artificial. The presupposition that isn't stated is that the universe is a closed system, therefore by definition whatever occurs in the universe CAN'T be attributed to God. Of course, the whole question is always decided at the outset. If DNA is designed, there is a Designer. If DNA isn't designed, it's an accident. The conclusion depends on the premises. What is meant by design and artificial? But formally there's a basic similarity between SETI and ID. Both believe it's proper to infer intelligence behind something that has no natural explanation.