#freethoughtblogs

three cellos and hands plus a hand drum 

Black Hole Sun composed by Chris Cornell, played by Break of Reality

shamelessly stolen from Crys at freethoughtblogs 

Instructions: Insert an exclamation point where needed. 

I want to kiss you 6 times 

[red x mark in box before this choice] I want to kiss you 6 times! 

[green check mark in box before this choice] I want to kiss you 6! times 

MATH NERDS DO IT BETTER 

. 

. 

. 

As Crys says, I can make that joke because I too am a nerd. 

. 

.

 .

If you don’t understand the joke, read more: 

https://archive.is/1AcoX

A lot of you have probably heard of SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) and maybe a lot less of you have heard of PZ Myers, a blogger whose claim to fame is being a figurehead for the abortion that was Atheism+, Atheism plus a bunch of social justice warrior bullshit. 

Given that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence has been given a $100 million shot in the arm, I am motivated to explain why I think it is a colossal waste of money.

There are two possibilities, either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Both may be equally as frightening but nothing is quite as sad as seeing what PZ Myers has turned into. 

Reason #1: It’s not going to work. It hasn’t worked so far — no signs of intelligent life out there at all — and while a negative result isn’t necessarily a sign of failure, it does mean the likeliest explanation is that intelligent life is very, very rare.

I don’t think anyone working at SETI thinks sufficiantly intelligent life isn’t rare. That however doesn’t mean that the project isn’t going to work. When you consider the fact that these are radio signals, things that need to obey the laws of physics and thus can’t go faster than light, and you realize that several stars are hundreds of light years away, you might then be able to figure out why it hasn’t worked yet.

What they want to do is to expand upon their work. Give it a direct upgrade: “This will let them scan frequency ranges between 500 MHz and 15 GHz, roughly five times wider than previous searches. More computing power will also be thrown at analysing the data, which will allow the team to look for a signal across a wide range of frequencies simultaneously.”

The equipment they will be using is more sensitive and has more computing powers. It’s analogous to a lab dedicated to researching DNA going from a machine that can decode 1 human genome in a week to 3 in a weekend. 

Or that it’s not interested in talking to us.

I kind of doubt that. There’s no evidence that aliens read your blog. 

Or that they’re using a communications technology we haven’t discovered yet.

That’s within the realm of possibility which is why it’s nice that the people at SETI are getting an upgrade that would better allow them to detect signals. 

Oh, there are so many excuses from the SETI community!

Worden is also circumspect. “We might not find anything,” he says. “But that begins to tell us something significant about the universe. A null result is still a good one.”

All right, I say, you’ve got a great big null result so far. A grand goose egg. What does it tell you? The significant answer so far seems to be that now you’ve got an excuse to ask for even more money, so you can search harder.

SETI wasn’t begging for money though. If you read the article you linked to: “The hunt is on. We have been scanning the skies for signs of life for decades, but the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has never been a high priority when it comes to allocating public money. This has made long odds even longer, says Russian billionaire and venture capitalist Yuri Milner who, alongside Stephen Hawking, today launched a $100 million project called Breakthrough Initiatives to reinvigorate the search for ET.”

So no, this is coming out of the pockets of Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking (probably more the former than the latter). And even then, what is the issue with them wanting more money for better equipment? You sound like a conservative politician arguing “Well what has NASA ever done for us? Why do we need to give them money? Space has no use!” 

Reason #2: It seems to turn smart scientists into insipid, facile dimwits. I am constantly appalled at the goofy rationales they give for SETI.

“SETI is very much a shot in the dark,” says associate director of Jodrell Bank Observatory Tim O’Brien at the University of Manchester, UK, who is not involved in the project. But he agrees that devoting telescope time to the search is worth it. “Imagine if there was a message and we simply hadn’t been listening.”

Right. Imagine if fairies actually existed, but we hadn’t been clapping hard enough to keep them alive?

Jesus Christ, Myers! Are you seriously comparing to the search for intelligent life in the universe to fairies!? You never were the greatest debater in the world but holy hell you were never this bad. Is this what feminism does to otherwise rational men? 

 Ignoring the fact that Tom O’ Brien was being intellectually honest about it being a shot in the dark (As just about every venture related to space is one way or another at its start), how is saying that developing technology that might be able to detect signals sent by intelligent civilizations being a good thing constitute as acting like “insipid, facile dimwits”?

Clap! Clap your hands! Clap harder! See any fairies yet? Well then, you clearly need to give me $100 million to clap a lot more. If I don’t find any, though, you can’t complain, because the null result tells us something significant about the universe: that fairies are really, really hard to resuscitate, apparently.

I guess he’s more interested in continuing his fairy play than making an argument. Why someone like Myers who should know better than to compare what’s a perfectly natural phenomenon to the search of supernatural creatures is beyond me. What is he going to do next? Yell at NASA that they put equipment on their Mars rovers for detecting life because “Hey we haven’t found Marvin the Martian yet so it’s all like looking for Atlantas. Clap for Atlantas hur hur hur!”?

You are aware that the universe is a huge place, and relative to all the time the universe has existed, humans have only seriously been looking for alien life within the last 50 or so years? We’re no longer looking at Mars though dirty telescopes and assuming the scratches on the lens are canals, this is actual science being done. 

Myers, you sound like a creationist. You aren’t a creationist, right? You haven’t changed your position because Rebecca Watson decided that evolution is sexist and we can’t trust anything from Darwin because he was misogynistic, right? 

Reason #3: Taking a shot in the dark is dangerous. Do you have any idea what you’re trying to contact out there, or who is hunting for you?

You spent the last two reasons essentially arguing that it’s pointless to search for aliens and shitting on these people for saying that they might be out there and now you’re making grand assumptions about the nature of aliens. 

Even if these hypothetical, undetected aliens are not hostile, or prevented by the physics of vast differences from physically harming us, has anyone considered the effect of a significant signal on Earth? SETI investigators already exhibit an almost religious fervor, a faith in things unseen, a hint of confirmation might unbalance them completely.

I’d be willing to say that an actual hint that there might be intelligent life out there in the universe would give literally every scientist on Earth a reason to celebrate. You are aware this isn’t just SETI scientists behind this, right? You might want to check the names on the article you listed and find Steven Hawking. You might also be interested in visiting NASA some time or any other space agency and ask them if any of their missions are partly dedicated to helping figuring out if aliens are real or not. 

You might want to leave the bubble that is your blog is what I’m saying. 

And do we really want to talk with an alien civilization so dedicated to piping out their one-way message? I have no reason to have a conversation with the proselytizer who is broadcasting their propaganda here on Earth, why should I want to talk to one a thousand light years away?But yes, the SETI fans will say, you can’t assume the messages will be bad or pointless, and we won’t know unless we tune in. See Reason #2.

Myers, you do know that Earth is constantly sending out radio signals into space that aren’t part of SETI, right? Any intelligent alien life close enough could tune into early Earth television or maybe listen to some Beatles? This has been both the premise of Carl Sagan’s Contact and of an episode of Futurama for crying out loud. Suffice to say, SETI isn’t the only thing sending signals out but they are the ones who are checking to see if there’s a reply. Unless you’re also worried about how aliens are going to react to Hitler’s Olympics speech, I’d suggest you shut the fuck up and put your bad arguments back from where they came.

The point is, the project isn’t looking for any specific type of ETI signal. They’re not crossing their fingers for aliens to send messages of peace and love and say “come visit, bros! Our planet is in this location relative to these pulsars!”. 

ANY signal that can be confirmed to have been sent by an intelligent source would be worth it to SETI (along with everyone else who isn’t a grumpy man who couldn’t even make it in atheism). It could be a commercial for alien viagra and that would be one of the most significant moments in all human history. The universe is kind of funny so it might end up being something like that. 

Reason #4: Are we really ready to communicate with a galactic civilization?

Generally yes. NASA alone has several protocols set up for even the remote chance of finding single celled organisms on other planets. 

“The house is a mess, the rain forests are being chopped down, we’re slaughtering all the other species, and our own species is slaughtering itself over the proper skin color or holy book. Is this really the best time to go looking for company? Imagine if their first question is, “How’s your meteor defense system holding up?” or “Are your greenhouse gases under control?””

How are your meteor defense system holding up? It’s doing pretty well actually. Our atmosphere is still here and there’s several plans in the works for artificial defenses. 

Are your greenhouse gasses under control? Not necessarily but then again it’s only been a little over a hundred years since the industrial revolution and that’s being worked on to. 

But that’s beside the point, isn’t, Myers. As long as we’re throwing out hypothetical situations, what if we find intelligent alien life that’s less advanced than us? We upgrade to SETI 2.0 but they’re still using the older model? Isn’t it also more likely that aliens would be more concerned on whether or not we’ve become a multi-planet species than than anything else? There’s a lot of questions and while the answers given by science fiction authors are nice, I think scientists would rather get a real answer and the only way to do that is to look for alien life. 

and their reaction to our answer is to drop the line and suggest communication might be more productive if there is some hope that our species will exist long enough for more than a few exchanges. Or worse, that they’ll be sending along some salvage ships to pick up the pieces in a few centuries, when we’re gone.

You are aware that the human race is capable of doing more than one thing at a time, right? Literally all of science, technology, and industry isn’t going toward SETI. There are already many plans for colonizing Mars. However, as long as mankind is leaving the nest, it might be nice to see if there’s any other birds out there to speak metaphorically. 

So this is pretty much a non argument and has fuck all to actually do with the validity of SETI. You could argue the same for any scientific endeavor? fusion power? Cure for cancer? Why bother if the species might not live forever! God knows the human race can’t multitask. 

I suppose we could flip that, and what we’re really looking for is a nearby SOS, with a civilization in meltdown. Wouldn’t that be a prime target for scavenging?

It would still be incredibly significant to find an SOS. It’s not necessarily what we’re looking for (though it does fall within the possible things we’d find based on what we’re looking for) but hey, there is or was intelligent alien life out there all the same. Thank goodness we decided to listen to Stephen Hawking rather than PZ Myers on this! 

 Reason #5: It’s simply terrible science. It’s nothing but an expensive fishing expedition driven by wishful thinking. I’m all for basic research without a practical goal, but science should at least have the goal of increasing our understanding. What does SETI help us understand? 

1. Developments in better technology to send out and receive messages from space. This includes the pros and cons of different communication methods. Whatever might be a problem for aliens is going to be a problem for us. 

2. A serious look at the possibility of alien life in the universe, how that life might evolve, and how civilizations might evolve. So far we only have one data sample for that so finding just about anything else would be a tremendous help.

Human psychology, maybe, but there are cheaper, more effective ways of doing that. Before you go poking into some mysterious hole with a specific instrument, you have to have some justification for doing it, and the SETI researchers have failed to do that.

Alright. Let me try something. We know that humans, an intelligent species in the universe, regularly sends out signals into space. We also know that life is capable of evolving the intelligence to do so. You’re an atheist, Myers, so I’m guessing that you’re not too keen on the whole God thing and might more interested in the possibility that life could arise naturally. 

So the question is, is there life on other planets and could that life evolve to the point where they send out signals (purposely or not) that we could detect?

Finding evidence of alien life, let alone but intelligent alien life, would be the single greatest scientific discovery in history and will have a tremendous impact on everything from astronomy to biology to philosophy to religion to how we think about our place in the universe from a day to day basis. 

And there we go. Observation, hypothesis, we’re on the testing stage now, and why something like this might be regarded as important. 

Also a lot of good science was done from fucking around. Not to say that SETI is merely fucking around but Myers might be interested to remember that even evolution was an unintended consequence of Darwin's voyage. 

At best, they provide TED talks that appeal to science fiction fans. Not good enough.

Shitting on science fiction fans probably isn’t the best way to go, m8. I’m just saying there’s likely a pretty big overlap with scientists. And also way to shit on years of research and development with all the grace of a creationist. 

Reason #6: There are better ways to spend that much money.

And there are worse ways. 

How about making our house an attractive place to visit? 

There are millions of dollars being invested into environmental concerns. Even China, one of the shittiest places on Earth in that regard, is starting to, pardon the pun, clean up their act. 

No, Myers. You don’t have to worry much. There’s enough people with deep pockets looking out for good old planet Earth. Sometimes in ways you wouldn’t expect. You think that the technology of Tesla Motors isn’t going to become cheaper over time and thus make cleaner cars more accessible? Look again. 

So yuri Milner, billionaire mr. moneybags is smart enough to know that human race can do multiple things at once and wants to further a specific part of science. What’s the issue? 

 Making our conversations desirable?

Yeah being able to talk to aliens would be nice. Gee, if only there was some group that took the idea of intelligent life in the universe seriously enough to maybe speculate on how humans and aliens might be able to communicate in general. Hmmmmmmmm.

Learning new things on our own rather than hoping some galactic sugar daddy will send us cool information? 

I don’t think anyone’s going to be that upset if aliens tech people how to go faster than light or live forever but Myers, do you know anything about the world at all if this is your argument? State what you’re thinking of, Myers, and I can assure you that there’s people working on that problem right now here on Earth surprise surprise, WHILE (that is, at the same time) SETI is doing it’s thing. 

Shocking, I know. Humans can try to work out cold fusion, find alien life, and observe the gene transfer of zebra fish all at the same time! 

It just makes me think of the smart student scouring the web for hours looking for answers to an exam, rather than spending those hours studying and becoming more capable in the subject.

And what’s wrong with finding the answers? If you can’t figure out the problem, being able to see the end result and then going back to see how you might have missed it and what steps to take to get the desirable result is a good method. 

I mean, I know what you mean and all but it’s a shit analogy because that smart student is being practical. 

If you simply care about good scientific research, then giving that $100 million to NSF and asking them to distribute the money to promising, productive research would be a step forward

I sure hope you aren’t involved in NSF in any way. It would be a shame if... GamerGate unsheathed it’s ethics on you.

I’m pro funding science in general but I’m also heavily pro-space. I’m sure Milner gave some thought as to why he’s donating 100k to SETI.

Unfortunately, this money comes straight out of the pockets of a Russian billionaire who thinks making money qualifies him to understand how science works,

Now you’re putting words in his mouth. He wants to help a specific group of scientists and researchers have access to better equipment. You seem to be salty that he (and Hawking) are interested in the continued search for alien life and thus are funding projects heavily dedicated to just that. 

and makes him think his fantasies are valid.

Again, your salt levels are showing. 

So he flushes that cash right down the drain, into the waiting arms of the SETI brigade. Bleh.

Yeah, fuck them for wanting better equipment. 

All my waifus are from space so I’m probably biased in favor of anything that furthers the search for alien life in general be it Curiosity or SETI but it seems that Myers has little understanding of how the human race is able to work nor about what SETI does in general. This article of his reeks of creationist reasoning and makes me glad I haven’t visited his blog in years. 

Myers, what the fuck happened to you?

Maybe it SETI set up a Patreon and said that GamerGate harassed its female staff he’d be more open to funding them. :^)

Maybe if SETI said they’d name whatever they find after Rebecca Watson he’d be all for it :^)

I scrolled down a bit and hey, did you know there’s something called a Secular Social Justice conference on January 30-31st? Talk about a waste of money. Could have gone to SETI am I right? :^)

Jesus Christ, I scrolled down and he’s linking to shit like “We hunted the mammoth” and some shit called “I blame the patriarchy” He still has the Atheism+ logo proudly displayed on his blog. Pandas Thumb and Sandwalk don’t deserve to be linked from this place! Oh and Skeptchick for the skeptic websites. I don’t have anything cheeky to say here. This is a disaster. 

I hope none of you guys visit there without at least two adblocks running at the same time or through archive/donotlink links. 

For further reading:http://www.arn.org/docs/williams/pw_setivsufology.htm

------------

EDIT: I asked earlier if Myers would ever become a creationist and cite Darwin being a sexist as a reason. Turns out he actually did have something to say about the guy along with other atheists, living or dead, and most of them bigger names than him. This is but an excerpt of the article:

 He described Robin Williams’ suicide as ‘the death of a wealthy white man dragging us away from news about brown people’, said that a white lady who made racist comments ‘looks like the kind of person who would have laughed at nanu-nanu’, then added: ‘I’m mainly feeling that I should have been more rude, because asking me to have been nicer about the dead famous guy is completely missing the point’. He said of other dead people that Charles Darwin was a ‘sexist asshat’, Richard Feynman was a ‘reprehensible asshole’, and Christopher Hitchens was a ‘bloodthirsty barbarian’ and a ‘club-carrying primitive’.

Bravo, Myers. You can read about all the others on his shitlist here: http://www.michaelnugent.com/2015/04/07/atheist-ireland-dissociates-from-pz-myers/