geothermal wrote:

JoeSP wrote:

I don't mean to be an enemy of SETI, I find it fascinating to say the least, but an increasing number of scientific minds are growing more and more critical of the project.  I was severely chastised in these groups for merely stating the somewhat obvious.

I said that it was highly unlikely that efficient radio communication would contain repeating elements, which is what SETI is mainly searching for. Our own communications use a type of compression that takes out repeating elements, thus making it appear more and more like random noise.

I guess I don't understand how you came to the conclusion that an advanced alien race might eliminate repeating elements  just because humans did ?  So anything humans do changes an advanced civilization toward "highly unlikely" that they will do the same ? I would think the wording would be "slightly unlikely" ?

    I am reminded of my experience with the Navy and learning to read the very circumscribed language of message traffic developed in the days of Morse code. Eventually the entire fleet was retrofitted with more quality bandwidth than was needed for this langauge. The directive came down to start using plain english. So they wanted people to expand their messages to fill the bandwidth available.

    Although I would be the last to assert the Navy is an example of intelligent life FWIW it is within my experience the availability of bandwidth lead to reinserting redundancies and "verbal ruffage" around the substance of the message.