Searching for Aliens. The Wrong Way? A dialogue with John Gertz

John Gertz is a Renaissance Man. One might think that the President of Zorro Productions might be the last person to talk with about the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), and the last person to chair SETI’s governing board. But as is clear from our discussion, and from the material in his recent book, Reinventing SETI, John has not only mastered all of the relevant technical issues, he has thought deeply about the motivation for SETI, and the likelihood of its success. Treating the issue as a businessman rather than a scientist, he has tried to anticipate what signals other civilizations might send, and what we might listen for. He also takes a realistic view of what we might actually be able to detect. The net result of our conversations is that the prospects are not good for detecting anything out there. Distant aliens are likely not broadcasting in a way we could be sensitive to. And as he points out, we should probably do the same. His great hope is that alien civilizations have instead installed probes in other solar systems, including ours. However, this possibility too, as I emphasized with him, is also rife with difficulties.

I have thought a lot about SETI since I wrote The Physics of Star Trek. I don’t think anyone has affected my thinking on the issue since then more than John. I was pessimistic before. Now I think the whole effort is probably misguided. Though, if someone other than the government is willing to pay for it, what the heck. As I often tell experimentalists. Do what you can do, no matter what us theorists say. We may be wrong.

I hope you find our discussion as informative and provocative as I did. I will be interested to hear if it changes your perspective on SETI as well.

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