In infinite wisdom Paul Blay answered:

"Andrew Nowicki" wrote ...

Harold Groot wrote:

HG> So if I fail to chop down a tree with a single swing of an axe, by
HG> your definition I would be an idiot to continue chopping?  Sure, you
HG> can argue that my 2nd and subsequent swings of the axe are not
HG> identical to the first....

If you are making a dent in the trunk, you can estimate
how much time it will take finish the chopping.

I posit that there are people who are sometimes absent minded enough to put on only one sock in the morning.  In order to test this I get permission to put a camera at ankle height in a ticket machine in an
underground station that has a few thousand people pass through each
day.  After analysing one day's results I have found no one-sock wearing people.

Based on these results what is the estimated time until I find a one-sock
wearer?

Unlike SETI, people wearing one sock have actually been observed. And
there are no a priori reasons to question either their existence or
their delectability should they exist. Where are you gonna put your
camera to detect ET?

To make your analogy more similar to the situation with SETI you'd have
to use bigfoot or perhaps the Lock Ness Monster.

Now, no matter how many nessie photos are shown to be fake, no matter
how many sonar surveys come up empty, no matter how many fish surveys
show too few fish to feed a breeding population of animals of Nessie's
purported size, the searches continue, with better and better equipment,
and they continue to come up empty.

At what point would an intelligent observer call it quits?

With SETI, we seem doomed to a similar situation.

How much energy and resources are called for? Is there an upper limit?
Or is this like Economics where you can get everything wrong for your
entire professional career and still get paid. And if an economist does
get something right one sunny day, it's Nobel prize work for sure.

Rich