Re: Your tests are untestable


"topmind" <topmind@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1156310711.762149.294260@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
bryce.topmind.jacobs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
topmind wrote:
Zachriel wrote:
As life on Earth is related by common descent, that wouldn't be
necessary.
If life on Earth was seeded by aliens, then all life would presumably
have
the embedded message.

I am not claiming they necessarily seeded from scratch.

You're not claiming anything specific enough to test or supported by
any available empirical evidence. That's why your speculations don't
constitute the practice of science.

Come on, now. SETI is not specific. SETI claims NOTHING about ET other
than being able to broadcast radio waves.


That is incorrect. Theories of planetary and biological development indicate
that organic life is not unique to Earth. Hence, posited radio signals would
come from organisms that evolved on other planets much like they have on
Earth. They are not random radio signals, or the signals of disembodied
entitites. SETI follows (albeit weakly) from theoretical understanding.


I've said this a jillion
times already.


That would make you wrong a jillion and one times, then. You continue to
ignore what anybody says.


That is why I don't like replying to you because you
paste in claims that I already addressed.

In short SETI is also extremely vauge.

"There are no narrow-band radio signals of ~21cm resonant wavelength
being emitted from planets orbiting nearby stars." (Thanks to
Zachriel.)

"Orbiting stars" is not a requirement of SETI's hypoth, as already
described. Thus:

"There are no narrow-band (as defined by the SETI@HOME algorithm) radio
signals of ~21cm resonant wavelength being emitted from outside the
solar system."


SETI @ Home automatically compensates (data chirping) for both the Doppler
effect of the Earth and of the possible source. If a signal is found, one of
the first tests will be to determine its Doppler characteristics. However,
it is not particularly relevant. SETI would presumably discover a
narrow-band signal being emitted by a star just as easily as one emitted by
a planet.



A DNA-ID version:

There are no known sequential prime digits (as defined by encoding
algorithm X) longer than length Y in the DNA of earth species.


He asked for specifics and you say "algorithm X", and "length Y". Not
particularly specific. Why not just say "statistically significant"?

In any case, we already know that primes leave a very distinct statistical
signature that would probably already have been noticed. In addition, even
if not yet discovered, the current bioinformatics methodology would still be
the appropriate research tool. And the domain of exploration is much, much
less than SETI's. In other words, the search is already on! Just like
Martian cities on the Moon!



Same diff, dude.


That is sufficiently precise to run a distributed algorithm against.

So is the prime thing. If you see a material difference, then give the
RULES that separate them, not merely paste in your textual argument
over and over. Your textual argument is still weak even after reading
in 5 times. I want to see specific rules, not your summary assessment
over and over.

Note that a lot of SETI's decisions are meant to optimize the search
resources rather than "hard" assumptions about ET.


All science works with limited resources. With unlimited resources, there
would be no science. We would just inspect every quanta in the universe and
call it quits.


They don't rule out
ET broadcasts at 23cm, for example. The specificness of the
optimization assumptions by itself is not evidence for the strength of
its hypothesis. At the most, it just means they put more thought into
the economics of it. An economically wasteful test is still a test.


You still haven't given any reason why anyone should accept your assertion,
even tentatively. It is mere speculation of no scientific utility.


You seem to mistake all this as strenghening the base hypoth. One could
generate mounds of paperwork to attempt to optimize the search for
unicorns or Santa also. Paper-work volume is not a metric for being a
valid hypoth.


Unicorns and Santa Claus do not constitute valid scientific hypotheses
either.


--
Zachriel
Um, the first prime number is 2.
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/ea7b5d8e68e64bca




You seem to be dazzled by the wrong things when gaging "sufficiently
precise". Superficial things it seems.

-T-



.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Robots falsify the ID hypothesis?
    ... (radio signals in this case) ... SETI is based on *inference* from ... signals being looked for whose generation *has been* observed has been ... such a signal is, tentatively, inferential evidence of a human-like ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: A question for Sean Pitman.
    ... for the sort of signals we can produce, and are therefore known to be ... If SETI were to announce that we're not alone ... artificiality. ... all sorts of radio signals) and Well, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: A question for Sean Pitman.
    ... for the sort of signals we can produce, and are therefore known to be ... If SETI were to announce that we're not alone ... artificiality. ... all sorts of radio signals) and Well, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: A question for Sean Pitman.
    ... for the sort of signals we can produce, and are therefore known to be ... If SETI were to announce that we're not alone ... artificiality. ... all sorts of radio signals) and Well, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Do radio & TV signals travel forever?
    ... Re> I've seen TV shows where they say that radio signals are about 80 ... Re> light-years out from Earth. ... Re> TV signals, about 50 or so light-years out there. ...
    (sci.astro)