SETI: Good science or a crackpot waste of time?

[Superluminal]

Also the shield that our core generates is called a magnetic field.

[Enzo]

If our axis were drifting about, Bill, it would be doing so over times of thousands and thousands of years. ANy shifting of where ice might be found would happen no more swiftly than did glaciers move during the ice ages. Any life in the area would simply move on to a new location, just as happened then.

Lead? DOn't be silly. Umop covered that already.

People like SETI because they are dreamers, not because they are scientists.

Bill, you really really have no idea what science even is. Dreaming and science are not mutually exclusive. Many dreamers become scientists to chase after their dreams. Dreams are ideas, science is a process. If someone thinks ET is out there, then he can either wait patiently for ET's arrival while wearing tin foil hats, Or he can hypothesize that there might be signals we could receive if ET were out there. He then would devise methodology for the search, then he would implement the search. And finally he would analyze the results. That is the very essence of science.

You and I might think it is a wild goose chase, we might think is is silly, like looking for the home of the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus, but that is a separate issue from the process of science. After all, if I wanted to prove ther was a Santa Claus at the North Pole, I can hypothesize Santa's existence and presence, then devise methodology to detect it, in this case a review of satellite images would be a method, I could collect images of the entire North Pole region (and just in case, also the images of the North Magnetic Pole region), then examine the photos. I would then find that no such Santa existed there.

Now that would be pointless science, a waste of time in any practical sense, but completely scientific nonetheless. Science refers to the way you answer questions, not what the question is about.

But that is just a few of so many special qualities that I could list. But way bother? Noone wants to hear them.

We consider the source.

[Мастер]

People like SETI because they are dreamers, not because they are scientists.

Bill, you really really have no idea what science even is. Dreaming and science are not mutually exclusive.

I am somewhat inclined to point out that the statement quoted above does not say that they are mutually exclusive. That is one of several possible interpretations.

You and I might think it is a wild goose chase, we might think is is silly, like looking for the home of the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus, but that is a separate issue from the process of science.

I believe that is the question being asked, but the OP can correct me if I misspeak.