SETI Extends Search for Intelligent Life to Earth

Fifty years of scant results steer research to greener pastures

"Unfortunately, although we've tried to find intelligent life in Washington DC, so far we've failed." .. Arthur C. Clarke

Cosmologist Dr. Larc Nagas, Forward-director of SETI’s Serendipity Committee, in a radical agenda to modify how Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence is sought, proposes Earth be included in the search for intelligent life.

Reflecting on the paucity of "Wow" signals, Nagas lamented there seemed to be "bugger all up there in space," inverting the hook of Idle’s Galaxy Song.

Amongst the plague-like, inbred, self-seeking gluttony smothering this once pristine globe there yet might be the odd naked ape with empathy, love, wonder, curiosity, respect .. one who places the beauty and sanctity of life above compulsive acquisitiveness, pathological malevolence, and incessant primal ingratiation.

And I apologize for exhibiting more than a little frustrated bitterness. As a scientist on perhaps its most noble mission, I feel rather dismayed confronting humanity's back yard. ”

Dr. Nagas suggests the complete absence of decades of signals from distant and assumedly abundant civilizations leads us to re-examine SETI precepts. By fresh re-examination of Earth's life and revisiting definitions of life, intelligence and sentience, scientists might enhance search methodologies, even question whether advanced cultures would employ EM (electro-magnetic) signaling.

Humans, he ventured, might be the only sentient species lacking sub-space (aka, 'psychic') talent. Dolphins and whales might be in regular communion with like minds - instantaneously perhaps - anywhere in the universe. The nature of the universe is anything but a matter of fact, Nagas ventured, since everything we know of it - no matter how 'tested' - was deduced by its tiny subset, the human mind.

Humans might not yet, in fact, be 'sentient,' Dr. Nagas declared with a flourish - and mischievous grin.

He, like most AI and ET scientists, is particularly concerned SETI’s reputation suffers from both the ongoing debate about ‘hard science’ and lack of results.

We downgrade expectations from millions – to how many? – advanced extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy.

We counter SETI lacks Popperian criteria for falsifiability, or even if the Drake equation was ever testable.

We endure laughable claims active SETI might invoke a Borg-like Independence Day scenario - I can assure you Earth is at far greater risk from the return of a mutated Voyager than any science-fiction concoction."

While scientists seem wary of Dr. Nagas’ claims, governments are anxious to be seen supporting the revised mission. This year's G8 issued a draught statement revealing world leaders' grasp of SETI's new initiative:

We, the foremost Governments of Earth, endorse an ennobled SETI quest, pledging financial and instrumental aid to perhaps the noospheric equivalent of global warming and the greatest accumulated threat to our species' civilizations.

The quest for intelligent life on Earth presents a formidable and audacious undertaking whose vision and scope inspire awe, and failure to act invites bleak apprehension.

We, statesmen of the G8, personally affirm our individual Governments' commitment to implementing research and evaluation programs aimed at early detection and nurture of sentience among neonate citizenry.

The G8 pronouncement, curious in itself, contained an even more bizarre footnote (variously ascribed between "astutely perceptive" and "stunning blind ignorance") in which signatories conceded no sentient humans had yet been detected - a cause for both alarm and urgency in itself - and their respective administrations, in a disturbingly incongruous word choice, stated they would "leave no stone unturned in the search for intelligent life on Earth."

Dr. Lagas presented a new formulation for the Drake equation that attempts likewise to delimit the new mission:

Lagas-Hou-T'u equation: N = R* . fp . ne . fl . fi . fc . L
[This 'equation' is not proposed as testable, per the Drake version, but invoked to set focus]

Where:

N = The number of phylum on planet Earth confirming to definition/s of life [opposed to geographic or chemical processes that grow or reproduce]
R* =The rate of mutation and spawning of new kingdoms, phyla, or species [averaged sum of R*k, R*p, R*s [Note: this figure is currently strongly negative]
[alternatively, modifier*(operand of Linnaean taxonomic ranks)]
fp = The fraction of domains containing intelligent or potentially-so species
ne = The number of phylum per kingdom with potential for intelligence
fl = The fraction of kingdoms in which intelligence actually appears
fi = The fraction of intelligence-bearing kingdoms in which sentience appears
fc = The fraction of sentience-bearing kingdoms in which intelligent life survives its own survival activity
L = The length of time such sentience-bearing kingdoms achieve sentience-exponentiation**

**Lagas-Hou-T'u equation raises the issue in 'L' of whether humanity is indeed 'intelligent.' Though it has undoubtedly gained self-awareness, it is still mindlessly subservient to forces of its own creation ravaging its support-environment, and still lacks a species action plan. This leaves humankind in constant peril of auto-annulment, a species, Lagas says, that, even as you read this, grows upon the Earth in conformity with viral exponentiation and little indication it senses fragility in the limb from which it so imprudently and violently swings.