[I intentionally added the newsgroup alt.sci.seti in order to 
expand the review and commentary on these important questions]

Reason wrote:

If you do the math, the chance of finding intelligent life 
by scanning the sky for radio signals is virtually impossible 
for the following reasons:

The SETI@home project designers and administrators have never 
made any guarantees about this search method.  The scientific 
purpose of this project is to _discover_ if this method works.  

Radio is a crude and inefficient means of communication. 
Broadcast signals to space is even more so.  

Unproved assumption.  

Point-to-point beaming would be much more efficient.

Not only is this assertion (or claim) an unproved assumption, 
it is highly unlikely that this method could be employed 
because it would require prearranged sender receiver pairs 
at possibly galactic distances and therefore time frames on 
the order of thousands to millions of years for setup and 
also for message exchange.  i.e. how could they pinpoint a 
transmission direction to a distant system that they have 
not yet observed optically?  

Most organisms do not advertise their presence, except to 
mate or warn predators. Neither would justify broadcasting 
radio signals to space.

Again, an unproved assumption.  Possibly even false ... 

e.g. The neolithic monuments (standing stones, stone circles, 
henges, passage mounds) were erected intentionally (designed 
with a purpose).  Many of them provide sun alignments 
(solstices, equinoxes) that are still good over a span of up 
to 7,000 years ago.  

Those facts  demonstrate a very strong intellectual capability 
and achievement.  The fact that they were built to such 
precision with just human effort (no sophisticated machine or 
tools exist in the archaeological record) indicates strong 
ability to communicate and manage such projects.  

Are they a communication?  Yes, all art is communication.  
They are also monuments to those peoples' intellectual 
achievements.  Can we "read" them?  

Yes, to a limited extent -- eventually more.  

Repeating elements in a datastream are inefficient.  

False.  Repeated elements WITH forward error correction would 
be required for accurate communication at these distances.  

Sophisticated data compression would resemble random noise 
than anything else.

The SETI@home project is designed to test the conjecture that 
an advanced civilization might announce its existence by 
erecting and operating omnidirectional beacon(s).  The 1.42GHz 
band that is being observed in this project is one (just one) 
of the logical meeting places -- sometimes called the 
"watering hole."  

BTW, my statements here are based on published discussions that 
I read approximately 30 years ago.  

The universe is vast in size but also in the scale of time.  

Yes, that is true.  It is because of that difficulty, we are 
investigating the possibility of broadcast (not 2 way) messages 
that were not prearranged.  

The chance of us intercepting an intelligent signal in our 
lifetimes, in our region of space, with the type of elements 
we are looking for, would require many tiny windows to line 
up.  If you do the math, those tiny windows are never likely 
to line up for us any time soon.

Also true ... but we have to start in order to finish ... 
as opposed to stopping _before_ we start.  

Thanks for your question ... I hope that you will review my 
responses as carefully as I reviewed your statements.  

-- 
Martin G. Diehl

Reality -- That which remains after you stop thinking 
about it.  

All replies and comments accepted and considered.  
Adoption of your suggestions are at my sole discretion.  
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