|
| Personal background |
|---|
About Me
I have been interested in the nature of the cosmos and the possibility of alien life for most of my life, beginning when I first was exposed to science fiction books at a young age. I am an amateur astronomer (among other hobbies) and this combines with my interest in distributed computing to make seti@home a natural choice.
I am a technical writer for a small silicon-valley technology company that makes software for handheld devices such as Palm and PocketPC devices. I am an avid computer gamer, but also enjoy outdoor sports like archery and bicycling. I also dabble in comic book collecting, gaming of all kinds, mining for opals in Nevada, painting and collecting model miniatures, and of course reading books of all kinds. Lately I've been reading books by Dr. Stephen Jay Gould about natural history. |
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
|---|
It seems obvious that extraterrestrial life must exist, given the billions of stars in billions of galaxies in the universe. For me, the burning question comes down to the relative frequency that such life occurs on average, because that determines whether or not we have a chance of discovering extraterrestrial life any time soon. I sincerely hope for such a discovery in my own lifetime, but we do not know enough about the distribution of planets capable of harboring life for anyone to make a good guess about how soon we might discover alien life.
Should humans discover extraterrestrial life, the greatest scientific opportunities will result in the study of our own biology and the origin of terrestrial life. We'll be able to compare the alien organisms to organisms on Earth, and come to much better understanding of how life begins, and whether the Terran way of life, e.g. carbon-based, using DNA, our set of amino acids and protiens, methods of reproduction, and so forth, is a universal rule for life or merely the way it turned out in this instance. We'll also have the opportunity to dispel lingering creation-myths' power over scientific thought, although it is questionable whether that would be a benefit or a loss for humanity.
One possible danger of discovering alien life is the potential for humans to adversly affect it. While our interactions with Terrestrial life have proven damaging in many instances, the potential influence we could exert on an alien ecology is far more severe, because that alien biological tree of life will never have encountered the evolved biological strategies of our own planet... and vice versa. We will have to take very seriously our responsibility to not damage or contaminate alien ecologies until we are certain that it is safe, even if that means curtailing potential scientific study.
|
| Your feedback on this profile |
|---|
| Recommend this profile for User of the Day: |
I like this profile |
| Alert administrators to an offensive profile: |
I do not like this profile |
|
| Account data |
View |
| Team |
None |
|
