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Alien hunters 'should look for artificial intelligence'

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Angel of Ioren said:
Why is it okay to call Shostak a "boob," but when someone calls Jarvis a "nut" everyone is up in arms?
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I'm not going to call Shostak a boob. The guy is clearly smart. But this guy has a made a career out of speculation and then has the nerve to criticize others who may not have fantastic data, but at least have data in some form. SETI has NOTHING. All they have is lots of speculation. In the few decades they've been operational they haven't had one sliver of data to present to anyone about anything. And this article is just more speculation from him. That's all he does.
 
Wickerman1972 said:
I'm not going to call Shostak a boob. The guy is clearly smart. But this guy has a made a career out of speculation and then has the nerve to criticize others who may not have fantastic data, but at least have data in some form. SETI has NOTHING. All they have is lots of speculation. In the few decades they've been operational they haven't had one sliver of data to present to anyone about anything. And this article is just more speculation from him. That's all he does.
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That's fine to say and it's fair criticism. As long as you're not calling him names. He's a scientist; he's not going to make any claims without proof. He has none, so he's not making any claims.
 
Angel of Ioren said:
That's fine to say and it's fair criticism. As long as you're not calling him names. He's a scientist; he's not going to make any claims without proof. He has none, so he's not making any claims.
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No, but constantly throwing his two cents into things he knows nothing about is not scientific. If I hear his shtick about the distance between stars one more time I may throw up.

UFO proponent: Blah blah blah Levelland sightings blah blah blah

Shostak: Well, the distance between the stars...

UFO proponent: Blah blah blah Betty and Barney Hill abduction blah blah blah

Shostak: Well, the distance between the stars....

UFO proponent: Blah blah blah radar reports blah blah blah

Shostak: Well, the distance between the stars...

Seriously, they could get anyone to say that over and over again. Why does it always have to be him? Just randomly pick some guy in the parking lot.
 
Xylo said:
Just one comment: Seth Shostak is a boob.
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He is just completely uninformed. He knows next to nothing about any of the cases that most of us can discuss with relative ease. He has never taken the slightest interest enough to look into the subject in any depth. Which would be ok with me if he didn't accept the opportunity to comment on it every time he is asked. My opinion is that he is a marketing machine for SETI. I think he will go on just about anything in order to get the word "SETI" in front of people. He uses the UFO subject matter as a vessel to peddle the SETI product. That is my biggest critique of him and his methods regarding UFO's.

---------- Post added at 08:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:22 PM ----------
Angel of Ioren said:
That's fine to say and it's fair criticism. As long as you're not calling him names. He's a scientist; he's not going to make any claims without proof. He has none, so he's not making any claims.
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I agree with you. However, I think the premiss of the SETI program is about as divorced from science as you can get.
 
Angel of Ioren said:
Why is it okay to call Shostak a "boob," but when someone calls Jarvis a "nut" everyone is up in arms?
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I call him a boob because: He speculates that life will not develop in the same way elsewhere that it did here, then speculate later that soon enough they'll have radio...and we'll catch 'em!

So he's contradicting himself on one hand and then completely ignoring the inverse square law on the other.
 
How many times has Friedman asked him to read those scientific UFO reports now? A dozen? Two dozen? You'd think he'd get so sick of being lectured about it that he'd just read the damned things to deny Friedman a talking point. But nope, he is committed to his ignorance of the subject and would rather have to defend not doing so over and over again rather than simply reading the damned reports and (gasp!) possibly learning something about what he is debating.
 
Shostak is OK on scientific stuff (although a little too much in love with his own ideas), but his attitude toward the paranormal seems to be that only idiots have weird experiences they can't explain. It's not so much that he's a skeptic. More like if everybody was as smart and rational as he is strange things wouldn't happen to them.
 
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