Técnicas de procesamiento y análisis de datos

Although the boundaries of the discipline and scientific method are being kept – at least from an outsider point of view – the SETI science shows differences to mainstream science (or science in general). SETI science is not a traditional one in terms of the subject matter. From the rigid scientific point of view, SETI is based on an assumption or the possibility of other life existing at best. The “subject matter” is missing; hence the search as such is not substantiated as a science. The ‘missing subject’ of course is an element defining all three search modes, and it is the very task of the SETI search to find that missing subject.

The concept of other life here bears a striking resemblance to the one presented above, in the chapter about messaging. Indeed, the listening mode stems from the work of the same scientific team (Sagan, Drake), and there is no doubt about what concept of life the SETI search presumes: extraterrestrial science. Yet another question remained unanswered. Does the SETI search represent general assumptions about the extraterrestrial in Western mass culture, or, more likely, have SETI activities influenced the imagining of the ‘Other’? The case of the Starchild Skull may indicate that there is a certain confusion between the scientific concept of other life and the popular imagining of the same, but this distinction is brought to a new level by including marginal ufology movements in the debate.

During my fieldwork I noticed the clear conceptual distinction in the ETL notions within the scientific community. Arguably, the attitude towards other life oscillates around 50%, while the other life definition in the survey design is not explicit and includes ‘extraterrestrial life’, ‘aliens’, or the generic term ‘alien beings’ (YouGov 2010a; YouGov 2010b). Overlapping from one field to another, the two key concepts we could present separately as ‘scientific’ and ‘popular’ coexist and co-develop as two valid cultural categories with a long tradition, and as such should not be omitted from any study dedicated to extraterrestrial life.

In the rhetoric of science, however, we can clearly identify two fundamental concepts. The first one stems from the tradition of SETI search: an intelligent,

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detectable, and inherently peaceful (scientific) civilisation that initialises contact or responds to our messages. The second concept, which will be discussed in the following chapter, is the most recent one: microbiological life, which is the subject matter of astrobiology. The line is clear. One of my respondents distinguished the two categories of the scientific search for other life as follows:

Well, I think that splits up into two broad categories. One of which is very different from the other one. So there is the search for extraterrestrial life via the radio, which is of course done with big radio telescopes. SETI is the example. ... What you are researching for is intelligent life, because they have to develop radio technology and also they have to wish to communicate and they have to exist, which is an important aspect of it. So that’s what has been going on for a long time. [...] The other category which is relatively new and probably only goes back a decade or a bit more than a decade is the finding of extrasolar planets outside of our solar system [INT2:3].

Very recently, however, the situation has changed, and SETI is moving towards new search strategies. Focusing on habitable planets and correlating their work with astrobiology (the exploring model), the SETI Institute solved the problem of “looking everywhere for anything” (Edmondson 2010:1412).

Although the Drake equation announces that our cosmos is populated by a considerable number of intelligent civilisations and the contrary would mean an “awful waste of space” (Contact, USA 1997), there is no proof that life beyond the earth exists. A considerable amount of literature has been published on SETI activities, originating from Acta Astronautica and Space Policy journals, mostly written by SETI scientists dealing with methodological (Tarter 2001; Maccone 2009) as well as strategic and policy matters (Tarter 1992; DeVore, Tarter et al. 2003; Landfester, Remuss et al. 2011). Edmondson provided a witty description of SETI efforts as “looking everywhere for anything” (Edmondson 2010), which also addresses the ‘missing subject’ or conceptual discrepancies that are of central interest for the cultural analysis of science in this work.

Out of many scientific arguments against the SETI search, I choose to discuss the one frequently mentioned by my respondents in order to demonstrate the scientific

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search for other life, and that is the big ‘if’.100 The main argument against SETI is the Fermi paradox.101 The key idea of the argument can be expressed in a simple question: “Where is everybody?”102

The Drake equation estimates that there is a high probability of other intelligent civilisations existing, which is in contradiction with the lack of evidence of the existence of such civilisations. SETI had been facing the so-called “eerie silence” problem, the term used by the chair of the SETI Post- Detection Task Group, renowned physicist and science writer Paul Davies (Davies 2011).

After 50 years of SETI searches, no traces of other life have been detected. Hence the question has emerged of whether it is worth SETI continuing? Generally we can divide the debate into two groups: SETI optimists and SETI pessimists. SETI optimists think it is worth trying, as demonstrated for example by Cocconi and Morrison, while SETI pessimists think SETI is a waste of time and a potentially dangerous enterprise, as Stephen Hawking made clear in 2010.103

In addressing the missing subject of SETI I aim to introduce a culture of science that is defined by not having a subject matter at its disposal to study and yet still searching to find it, be that conceptually or factually. Handling the SETI science in this way enables a cultural analysis of this culture of science to be presented in comparison to the mainstream or “big science” (Price 1986). The following subchapter introduces the SETI science as a “normal”, “controversial”, and “deviant” science of listening to outer space.

100_{Such as the concept of Rare Earth introduced by Peter D. Ward, who in his book argued Why}

Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe (Ward 2000).

101 _{According to most of the popular science readings available online, the Fermi paradox is the}

“apparent contradiction between the high probability extraterrestrial civilizations' existence and the lack of contact with such civilizations” suggested by physicist Enrico Fermi in 1950. Retrieved from http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Fermi_paradox.html Accessed 25

September 2013.

102_{Retrieved from http://www.seti.org/seti-institute/project/details/fermi-paradox. Accessed 30}

October 2012.

103_{Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8642558.stm. Accessed 10 July 2012. On a similar note,}

a famous science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clark, said: “Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”

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