Astronomers discover Planet X

[Neeyik]

Entertaiment is important for the development of any human being. Psychologically speaking.

There are other forms of (considerably cheaper) entertainment, unless you are implying that before the computer game industry, humans were less developed psychologically.

SETI on the paper, in itself, is a viable project, I'm not disussing this (true).
What i'm discussing is the timing... SETI is not a project for our time...

I didn't think anybody was discussing whether SETI is viable or not - the project is very simple in comparison to many other studies of space - but you appear to be changing the tack of your argument against SETI by stating it is not a project for our time. Previously you stated that it was a pure waste of time, money and knowledge; when does knowledge become dependent on time? When should one decide that xxx time is better to know this information than yyy time? If the money, time and resources are available now, then what is wrong with doing it? After all, you're stating that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the project if you're claiming that it's viable.

As of now, SETI could only serve as a philosophical project. We're only looking for a simple philosophical question "are we alone?".
And the price of the answer is quite expensive, especially if you consider that most philosophical questions are not meant to be answered.

Is it any less philosophical than the study of, say, quasars or indeed, anything to do with anything beyond the study of the Sun, Earth and Moon? The study of distant galaxies is exceptionally more expensive than the SETI project too.

Personally, I am neither particularly for or against the SETI project (rather ambivalent about it, to be honest) but what I find rather puzzling is some of the overtly hostile reaction to it that some people (and from your comments, it would appear that this includes yourself) display when discussing the work. If one is going to criticise the project on the basis that it's providing useless information because we cannot act upon it (it is there purely for knowledge and knowledge alone), then one must also criticise much of the current work done in astronomy, astrophysics and particle physics; one could also include zoological or archeological studies in this too.

The only reasonable grounds one could have against it is if it were publically funded or required scientific staff to dedicate time from other studies that were paid for publically. As it currently stands, SETI remains as private investigation that just so happens to capture the imagination of a lot of people - yes, one can easily say that the money could be better spent but there are worse things around that money is thrown at than a "find the bug-eyed alien saying hello" exercise.

 

[nutball]

Personally, I know that, based purely on the law of probability, there's must be other forms of life in the universe known, and unknown. There's just too many planets and too many different scenarios.

You don't know any such thing; that is a statistical argument at best, at worst it is verging on religion! We have no reliable means of testing our models of the development of intelligent life if we only have a single data-point. We therefore have no way of knowing to within tens or orders of magnitude what the probability is of intelligence developing on any given planet.

As an example, up until the mid-90's the models of the formation of the Solar System could be tested against a single example, ie. our own Solar System. The models reached a degree of sophistication that many astrophysicists were reasonably comfortable that they were reasonably realistic. Since 1995 some 150+ planets have been found orbiting other stars. The population of planets found so far were totally unexpected (Jupiter-like gas giants in Earth/Venus/Mercury-type orbits), and basically told us that the models were ... crap. According to our current understanding those planets just should not be where they are.

Any model we might wish to formulate to explain the rise of intelligent life on Earth or elsewhere will likewise be of dubious trustworthiness until it can be tested against more than the single example we have at this point.

 

[Farid]

but you appear to be changing the tack of your argument against SETI by stating it is not a project for our time. Previously you stated that it was a pure waste of time, money and knowledge; when does knowledge become dependent on time? When should one decide that xxx time is better to know this information than yyy time? If the money, time and resources are available now, then what is wrong with doing it? After all, you're stating that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the project if you're claiming that it's viable.

I didn't change my argument I just made precisions.
Money and time are available now, ressouces other than human energy, are not. Has I said the guys over SETI are searching a needle in a haystack. Their study approach is so inneficient that I won't be surprised if they never found anything (Well until a few generations pass and better technologies are created for these kind of tasks).

And about the time frame of this whole project, I rest my case, the "quest of useless informartion" aside, why trying to do something this costly when we don't even possess the proper tools to do the work properly? Statistically there's more chances that earth gets hit by a few meteors than SETI finding anything...

Is it any less philosophical than the study of, say, quasars or indeed, anything to do with anything beyond the study of the Sun, Earth and Moon? The study of distant galaxies is exceptionally more expensive than the SETI project too.

The study of the Quasar, distant galaxies, black holes, dark matter, etc... All can have enormous impact on our modern physic.
But in this case I won't argument, since I know that it's a pure devil's advocate kind of example from your part. Seeing how physic is your field.

You don't know any such thing; that is a statistical argument at best, at worst it is verging on religion! We have no reliable means of testing our models of the development of intelligent life if we only have a single data-point. We therefore have no way of knowing to within tens or orders of magnitude what the probability is of intelligence developing on any given planet.

Then, we have to live with this fact. "There's no answer to the this question" or "The answer to this question doesn't matter for the moment being".

I don't need to know it (Nor have faith in it

, in the first place).
And I don't understand why eminent scientists want to know that.

 

[nutball]

Then, we have to live with this fact. "There's no answer to the this question" or "The answer to this question doesn't matter for the moment being".

I don't need to know it (Nor have faith in it

, in the first place).
And I don't understand why eminent scientists want to know that.

The question is "where did we come from?". You seem to be advocating asking questions and then deliberately avoiding finding the answers.

 

[Diplo]

Perhaps our solo system doesn't now have 10 planets but actually 8...

Despite its distance, the little world is also proving to be highly controversial. Astronomers cannot agree whether it is a planet or just a jumped-up asteroid. Its discoverers are claiming Xena is the 10th planet. Other astronomers say it is just another of the Sun's minor planets. There are thousands of minor planets in the solar system, but only nine fully fledged major planets.

The last full planet to be discovered - in 1930 by US astronomer Clyde Tombaugh - was Pluto. But recently some astronomers have campaigned to have Pluto downgraded to 'minor planet' status. It is so small - its diameter is a mere 2,200 kilometres - that it is unworthy of the status of full planet, it was argued. This bid was finally rejected after heated scientific debate.

But now the discovery of Xena, which is only slightly bigger than Pluto, will re-ignite that row. Both Pluto and Xena are components of the Kuiper Belt, which is made up of thousands of small asteroid-like objects, many mere lumps of rock, that sweep the outermost depths of the solar system. As members of the Kuiper Belt, neither Pluto nor Xena should be rated full-fledged planets, it is argued. - http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1539786,00.html

 

[Richard]

I wish the new planet would be named something out of contemporary pop culture. Wouldn't it be great if it was named Hoth or Tantooine?