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SETI: A Critical History
Part III Implications of the expanded ETI discourse for SETI
Introduction
| SETI: A Critical History is a copy of the following
PhD thesis, reproduced here with permission: SETI's Scope How the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Became Disconnected from New Ideas About Extraterrestrials by Mark A. Sheridan Drew University May 2009 © 2009 by Mark A. Sheridan (email) All rights reserved |
| Contents
Cover Dedication Opening quote Some important events in the history of SETI 1. Introduction Part I. Constructing SETI 2. SETI science Greenbank3. SETI as popular science ETI portraiture as a rhetorical site Part II. Expanding the ETI discourse 4. The rehabilitation of "mind" 5. The Soviet critique of SETI Differences in attitudes toward ETIs6. The evolutionists' critique of SETI Dueling improbabilities7. The philosophers' critique of SETI 8. Plausible non-humanoid ETIs ETIs with non-humanoid sensorial >> Part III. Implications of the expanded ETI discourse for SETI 9. Reactions to the "nature"-based critiques Project Cyclops10. Inflection SETI's standing in the scientific community11. Evanescence 1993: annus horribilis12. Conclusion Bibliographical essay Bibliography SETI: Primary and secondary sources |
Although the SETI scientists chose to ignore these "nature"-based critiques or failed to recognize their relevance, the critiques continued to mount. By the time NASA was ready and able to take up its SETI project in earnest, thirteen years after the NAS meeting at Green Bank established SETI's role in NASA's broader SETL mission, the space agency had no choice but to acknowledge the "nature"-based critique: non-humanoids are more likely than humanoids, and SETI might have trouble communicating with or even detecting them. It took NASA another fifteen years to bring SETI operational. During that time SETI's status was indefinite. Ascribing to SETI elements of both conventional institutional science and popular science, the agency positioned SETI as a kind of inexpensive lottery ticket with potentially enormous returns.
NASA's SETI project finally went "live" in 1992, after the idea entered its fourth decade. Congress abruptly cancelled the project the following year. The public's enthusiasm had cooled, largely because the dissolution of the Soviet Union calmed Cold War fears and thirty years of searching failed to find any messages. Moreover, the scientific community essentially forced SETI's organizers to admit that their project did not really scientifically test the question of whether ETIs exist, as they initially claimed.
The first generation of SETI pioneers refused to address the "nature"-based concerns of their critics by expanding SETI's scope to consider messages from non-humanoid ETIs. They abandoned their claim to be experimenting and claimed, instead, to be explorers. Before fading from the scene, SETI's pioneers secured sources of private funding more appropriate to their new status – patronage – and continued to search as they originally planned.
Today, as SETI celebrates its Golden Anniversary, a second generation of leadership manages the effort. They still search for humanoid messages.
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