Excerpt from cambridge-news.co.uk
What is known as Active Seti will be under serious discussion this
week at the annual meeting of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Jose, California.
Seti spokesman Dr Seth Shostak outlined methods being
explored of conducting Active Seti within the next two years – including
the possibility of nurturing an alien interest in cricket and rock
music.
The idea would be to flood the ETs with lively content from the internet rather than bore them with mathematical concepts or chemical equations.
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| Stephen Hawking. Credit: Nick Ansell/PA Wire |
But the Cambridge physicist has warned against inviting an
unwelcome visit from aliens, pointing out: “The outcome would be much as
when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the
Native Americans.”
A
number of other experts agree with Prof Hawking – including scientist,
author and futurist Dr David Brin, who is taking part in the AAAS
symposium.
He said: “If you bring human history into the discussion, there is a cautionary tale. Name one example of a meeting between an advanced civilisation and a less technically advanced one that did not end in tears.
“Just
because the probability of a negative outcome is very low that does not
mean it is zero. The existence of low probability outcomes that might
be devastatingly negative is worth pondering.”
On the methods, Dr Shostak, director of the Centre for Seti
Research in Mountain View, California, said: “I think you’d want to
send lots of information. I recommend that we send the entire internet,
the Google servers.
“Send
it all. If they look up cricket, there are descriptions, pictures,
diagrams showing a pitch, footage.. They’ll cross-correlate all this and
put it together and if they are clever at all, they will figure out
something about cricket.
“Honestly, what do they want to hear from us? Do they want
to hear what the structure of the hydrogen atom is? No, they know that.
They want to know about our rock ‘n roll.”
Seti
dates back to 1960 when a young astronomer called Frank Drake conducted
the first microwave radio search for intelligent signals from other
solar systems.
Since then about 100 searches have been made for radio or
laser-transmitted messages from the stars, none of which have confirmed
the existence of an extraterrestrial civilisation.
A
few isolated attempts have also been made to contact ETs directly by
broadcasting signals. But now a number of scientists, including Dr
Shostak, believe what is needed is a full scale co-ordinated Active Seti
operation.
Source Article from http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AscensionEarth2012/~3/P6zOh7DAVhM/stephen-hawking-warns-that-attempting.html
Stephen Hawking warns that attempting to contact aliens could invite disaster
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