The alien hypothesis?

[John Doe]

My point about funding , I believe, stressed the same
point you just reiterated - the majority is done under
institutional auspices...but... original ideas arise
unbidden by bucks, and no I don't believe all the
subscribers to this "site" understand the difference
between thinking up ideas vs. executing them and then
marketing them...many mathematicians still work this
old-fashioned way...and Frank Drake by the way, was
not being paid per se to develop the Drake
Equation...Ihe did it out of passion and
curiosity...there are plenty of mavericks...it's just
that the great bulk of them never make the Big
Contract...that's the way it's always been...I
personally do not believe we have ever been
"visited"...for many reasons...but I think CETI is a
noble endeavor, and for what it MAY "return" on our
investment, it's a bargain; the funding is peanuts
compared to the sensless waste on military antics
which cost lives, among other things..

--- jbor at bigpond.com wrote:

> > always keep in mind that a considerable
> > amount of the "purest" science is done this way; a
> gal
> > or guy scribbling and thinking, and thinking and
> > scribbling...simply because THEY, not some
> > institiution, want to know what's possible...many
> > people on this site seem to have no notion of that
> > part of the scientific process; the part BEFORE it
> > becomes "appropriated" by...larger interests..
> 
> Hi John Doe
> 
> I don't think there's anyone participating in the
> discussion or 
> subscribed to this list who has no notion of this.
> Where's your 
> evidence?
> 
> The point was that a lot of time (and money) is
> spent by 
> scientists/"Science" investigating (the possibility
> of) the existence 
> of alien life. Regardless of whether you can take
> that proposition 
> seriously.
> 
> The institutionalisation of "Science" in Western
> society is a separate 
> debate which could be had, but I'd make the point
> that there are a 
> whole lot of scientists -- the majority, I'd say --
> who are working for 
> a wage and whose research schedule is dictated
> solely by the 
> corporation or government agency they work for. Your
> model of the 
> maverick genius with pad and pencil (starving in a
> garret etc) is a 
> romantic ideal, a noble one to be sure, and there
> are certainly 
> examples, but generally-speaking it's governments
> and the private 
> enterprise sector which drive the agenda. (Pynchon
> ref: Yoyodyne corp. 
> in Lot 49) Generally-speaking, research undertaken
> in the universities 
> is also reliant on research grants which are
> administered by 
> governments and corporations.
> 
> And, it's not a site, it's the pynchon discussion
> list.
> 
> best
> 
> On 16/10/2005, at 8:00 AM, John Doe wrote:
> 
> > Any kind of science backed by and reliant upon any
> > kind of funding, whose source does not consider a
> > certain persuit - like investigating whether or
> not
> > Mars can support life - worth subsidizing, will
> not
> > provide the resources for a team to do such
> > investigating...this is , sadly, how the world
> > works....HOWEVER...there are many - all of CETI
> and
> > Frank Drake to name just the most prominent ( or
> > loudest ) - scientists who do such work , to the
> best
> > of their limited ability, with pad and pencil, so
> to
> > speak....always keep in mind that a considerable
> > amount of the "purest" science is done this way; a
> gal
> > or guy scribbling and thinking, and thinking and
> > scribbling...simply because THEY, not some
> > institiution, want to know what's possible...many
> > people on this site seem to have no notion of that
> > part of the scientific process; the part BEFORE it
> > becomes "appropriated" by...larger interests..
> >
> >
> > --- jbor at bigpond.com wrote:
> >
> >> Actually, "Science" does seem to spend an awful
> lot
> >> of time (and money)
> >> investigating whether Mars could support, or has
> >> supported, organic
> >> life and so forth. I'd imagine that the
> probability
> >> of the existence of
> >> "life" elsewhere in the universe could be
> calculated
> >> scientiffically,
> >> i.e. via some sort of equation where the expanse
> of
> >> the known universe
> >> is moderated against the likelihood of
> environmental
> >> and chemical
> >> conditions needed to generate and sustain "life"
> >> manifesting
> >> spontaneously. I suspect that the odds would be
> >> quite good.
> >> Hypothetically-speaking, that is.
> >>
> >> As to "intelligent life" or UFOs, well, that'd be
> a
> >> separate equation.
> >> Or a derivative of the first. But the concept of
> >> "intelligent life" is
> >> problematic in that it's another one of those
> >> self-defining systems or
> >> semantic constructs. And, coming at it from
> another
> >> perspective, it's a
> >> little but egotistical, if not downright
> >> solipsistic, to assume for
> >> oneself the mantle of supreme being in all of
> >> existence.
> >>
> >> Anyway, Pynchon ref: Vineland pp. 63-7.
> >>
> >> best
> >>
> >>> From: KXX4493553@[omitted]
> >>> Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 04:00:31 EDT
> >>> Subject: Re: Big Bang?
> >>> To: tristero69@[omitted], jbor@[omitted],
> >> pynchon-l@[omitted]
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> -------------------------------1129104031
> >>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
> >>> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
> >>>
> >>> =20
> >>> In einer eMail vom 12.10.2005 03:51:35
> >> Westeurop=E4ische Normalzeit
> >>> schreibt=
> >>>  =20
> >>> tristero69@[omitted]:
> >>>
> >>> Right.  There's lots of "perspectives"  on
> >>>
> >>
> >
>
UFOs-have-landed-and-abducted-hayseed-fuckheads-and-fucked-them-up-
> >>
> >>> the-ass-w=
> >>> it
> >>> h-probes...none
> >>> of  which I can take seriously...
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> A...and - Rosswell? =20
> >>>
> >>> kwp
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > 		
> > __________________________________
> > Yahoo! Music Unlimited
> > Access over 1 million songs. Try it free.
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> >
> 
> 


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