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07/26/10(Mon)09:18 No.1830346http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Social_concerns
Sagan
believed that the Drake equation, on substitution of reasonable
estimates, suggested that a large number of extraterrestrial
civilizations would form, but that the lack of evidence of such
civilizations highlighted by the Fermi paradox suggests technological
civilizations tend to destroy themselves rather quickly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SETI#.22Active.22_SETI
Active
SETI consists of sending signals into space in the hope that they will
be picked up by an alien intelligence. Physicist Stephen Hawking, in
his book A Brief History of Time, suggests that "alerting"
extraterrestrial intelligences of our existence is foolhardy, citing
man's history of treating man in meetings of civilizations with a
significant technology gap. He bluntly suggests that we "lay low".
The
concern over SETI was raised by the science journal Nature in an
editorial in October 2006, which commented on a recent meeting of the
International Academy of Astronautics SETI study group. The editor
said, "It is not obvious that all extraterrestrial civilizations will
be benign, or that contact with even a benign one would not have
serious repercussions" (Nature Vol 443 12 Oct 06 p 606). Astronomer and
science fiction author David Brin has expressed similar concerns.
As
was suggested by Richard Carrigan, a particle physicist at the US Fermi
National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois, 'passive' SETI could also
be dangerous in the style of computer viruses. |
