My original post was, “As long as people believe in the possibility of aliens, we’re going to be stuck with ancient astronauts, UFO hunters, SETI, and abduction claims.” It’s all bullshit.
Brainspore took exception to that, stating that SETI is less batshit crazy than the others – but “less batshit crazy” is still batshit crazy. And I still think it’s a waste of resources. And I think that an annual $2.5 million could be better spend on things like food stamps, and libraries, and practically anything useful that makes life better for people, instead of pretending that we’re going to find aliens.
Who said anything about shutting them down? I just said it’s a massive waste of resources – in my opinion, it’s like remote viewing and ESP research. So the operating budget is a drop in the bucket, and barely worth noticing? Okay – but it’s still a waste.
I mean – you’re not even disagreeing with me here.
And I think that’s a really silly comparison. We don’t have any reason to believe that remote viewing and ESP are real phenomena, but we know from our own existence that intelligent life is a real phenomena—we just don’t know how common it is yet. We may not know for centuries to come, but that doesn’t mean that the search is a waste of time. Even a negative result teaches us something.
I’m finding this an interesting – and depressing – illustration of how science is misunderstood by the public.
And if I leave that unspecified I’m sure everyone will read it as either support for or an attack upon their position, depending on their personalities. Which is an interesting enough experiment that I’m going to do so.
This is the problem in my opinion. People believe that extraterrestrial life must exist because there’s intelligent life here on Earth, and the universe is unimaginably vast. I get it, I really do, but it’s magical thinking.
I once heard an astronomer describe the SETI project as trying to find life in the ocean, when all you can look at is a glass of water. That’s a great analogy, but it’s inherently biased: we already know there’s life in the ocean! Consider how different the argument would be if described SETI as trying to find a mermaid in the ocean when all you can look at is a glass of water.
I don’t personally believe in extraterrestrials, but I am fascinated by the subject. And I stand by my original post: as long as people believe in extraterrestrials, we’ll have SETI, and UFO hunters, and alien abductions, and ancient astronaut theories.
By that logic, ancient people never should have wasted their time exploring what was over the horizon or across the sea, since they had no guarantee of a payoff.
Investment in science != tithings to religious institutions.
It’s perfectly logical to conclude that since the universe is so unimaginably vast, intelligent life probably exists elsewhere.
It’s equally logical to conclude that since the universe is so unimaginably vast, it’s extremely unlikely that any intelligent life exists anywhere near us in space, time or both. Specifically, near enough to visit us.
A lot of people are eager to believe in the vastness that’s so great that life is probable. They are not so eager to grasp the vastness that makes complete isolation probable no matter how many times/places life has emerged.
I did miss that part. I’m assuming you’re getting that from my post on Puma Pumku, where I said that it is a fascinating, mysterious site, but that there’s as much evidence that angels or time travelers built it as ancient aliens – meaning, there’s no evidence that anyone but humans built it. I’m not disparaging ingenious engineering, defending it.
We’re not talking about physical exploration. Going to the moon, or sending probes to Mars and everywhere else, is considerably different from scanning the skies for radio signals. Ancient people should have explored the horizon and sea, because the horizon and sea exist. There’s stuff there. Ancient people should not have sacrificed food, material goods, or people in an effort to communicate with space.
This is where you (presumably inadvertently) put human ingenuity on an equal footing with time travellers etc. And of course it wouldn’t have been “modern technology” – it would have been ancient (to us) technology based on insights that were perfectly useful and sensible within the context of the time and knowledge base.
(I seem to have my replies-and-new-threads all mixed up. Apologies for any confusion.)
That was never my intention. The show is about “ancient aliens” – the episode about Puma Punku was fascinating, but there’s as much evidence that aliens built it as there is that angels, time travelers, etc. built it. I’m not defending the ancient alien hypothesis (that should be pretty clear from my other posts) – early episodes are interesting because they do bring up places that are hard to explain, and it gives me a sense of mystery and wonder.
For your follow up post, if someone is going to say that ancient aliens built the pyramids (or whatever), they could just as easily say that it was aliens, time travelers, or that ancient people had modern technology. There’s no proof for any of it, angels or aliens. But a person can give credit to one non-existent agent, they can just as easily give credit to another non-existent agent.
But don’t you think it’s a cop-out for them to zero in on the outrageously unlikely – albeit sensational and entertaining – explanation rather than unravelling the mystery along the most likely path?
There are shows that explain both ancient and modern engineering. There are scientists working to explain ancient engineering feats. It’s a real pity that kind of thing is being pushed aside in favour of ridiculous fantasies that are presented to the naive and ill-informed as truly plausible possibilities.
I guarantee that there is zero plausible evidence that angels, aliens or time travellers built it, and that there is plenty of evidence – not mentioned in the show – that the “etc.”, i.e. human ingenuity, is behind it.
Quoting Wikipedia:
[quote]Archaeologists argue that the transport of these stones was accomplished by the large labor force of ancient Tiwanaku. Several theories have been proposed as to how this labor force transported the stones although these theories remain speculative. Two of the more common proposals involve the use of llama skin ropes and the use of ramps and inclined planes.[9]
In assembling the walls of Pumapunku, each stone was finely cut to interlock with the surrounding stones and the blocks fit together like a puzzle, forming load-bearing joints without the use of mortar. One common engineering technique involves cutting the top of the lower stone at a certain angle, and placing another stone on top of it which was cut at the same angle.[4] The precision with which these angles have been utilized to create flush joints is indicative of a highly sophisticated knowledge of stone-cutting and a thorough understanding of descriptive geometry.[6] Many of the joints are so precise that not even a razor blade will fit between the stones.[10] Much of the masonry is characterized by accurately cut rectilinear blocks of such uniformity that they could be interchanged for one another while maintaining a level surface and even joints. The blocks were so precisely cut as to suggest the possibility of prefabrication and mass production, technologies far in advance of the Tiwanaku’s Inca successors hundreds of years later.[9] Tiwanaku engineers were also adept at developing a civic infrastructure at this complex, constructing functional irrigation systems, hydraulic mechanisms, and waterproof sewage lines.[/quote]
So, transportation of the blocks could have been done (but hasn’t been proven to be) with a large labour force, skins, ramps, inclined planes. Slavery and a very basic grasp of physics got it covered.
Production of the blocks required excellent stonecutting skills and a strong grasp of descriptive geometry. Entirely plausible for numerous ancient civilizations.
Lastly, great precision suggests (doesn’t prove) the possibility of some form of prefabrication and mass production. It’s entirely plausible to me that an ancient people could have been capable of devising such a system – in no way “modern” but completely within the context of their time and the scope of their knowledge – and that knowledge of that system could easily be lost to future generations.
I don’t think it’s a cop out for two reasons. First, it’s entertainment, not educational programming. If it were on PBS, or if it were the only history program on TV, or if Neil deGrasse Tyson were the host, and said things like, “I’m not saying ancient aliens built this monument… but I can’t rule it out, either”, then yes, I’d absolutely have a problem with it. But really – it’s on the same channel that brings us “Stan Lee’s Superhumans”.
The second reason why I’m okay with it is, it draws in people who would otherwise not watch anything even marginally educational. Maybe they go from “Ancient Aliens” to “Ancient Engineering” – who knows? For myself, I enjoyed the early seasons of the show because it was entertaining, but I also learned about real places and things that I probably wouldn’t have discovered otherwise. Early episodes were not a waste of my time.
Naivete and crackpot theories are not limited to the general public. I think belief in the unbelievable is an essential human trait, and we’ll never see the end of it.
I’m OK with your first reason, but not your second. The reason is that this kind of thing is way, way on the wrong side of the line between educational and simply entertaining. It’s counter-productive pseudo-education.
If it made you aware of places and things you might not have discovered otherwise, I see that as a very small benefit. There are many truly educational paths to discovery for these things. That pseudoscience got you there is not really a redeeming quality of this kind of nonsense IMO. And how many viewers go from this stuff to serious, plausible avenues of inquiry? I fear the number is very, very small.
People believe that life probably exists elsewhere because we know life is possible. In my opinion, assuming that we are entirely unique among untold trillions of planets seems more like “magical thinking” than investigating the possibility of extant life elsewhere.
OK, lets say for sake of argument that we ARE completely unique, the sole example of life in an unimaginably vast universe. Well, that would be pretty a pretty fascinating thing to learn too. That’s the great thing about scientific investigation—you end up with more knowledge than you started with no matter what the result of the investigation turns out to be.
That’s true. For one thing, observing the skies from afar requires a few orders of magnitude fewer resources.[quote=“Mongrove, post:32, topic:14456”]
Ancient people should have explored the horizon and sea, because the horizon and sea exist. There’s stuff there.
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Other PLANETS exist. We’re in the process of trying to learn what’s there.
Ancient people DID dedicate resources to observing space with the tools available to them at the time. That’s how humanity charted the stars and the motions of the planets. We’re simply observing an aspect of space that was unavailable to our ancestors.
Yes, in the same way that leaving the door open on Passover requires almost nothing. But it doesn’t mean Elijah the Prophet will ever show up.
Every argument you’re making in favor of extraterrestrial life can be applied to almost any form of pseudoscience. We’re still discovering new species, so it’s possible that Bigfoot exists. But if Bigfoot really doesn’t exist, that would be good to know too, so we should keep searching. Ancient people studied the woods and forests, and learned many important things; but they didn’t have the tools that we have, so we’re simply observing those forests with night-vision cameras because Bigfoot.
